![]() Description Īustralian water dragons have long powerful limbs and claws for climbing, a long muscular laterally-compressed tail for swimming, and prominent nuchal and vertebral crests. The northern dragons have smaller spines, "a series of 5–7 deep yellow, to yellowish-orange squarish to diamond-shped blotches along the mid flanks", and other colouration differences. The southern population ranges from Kiama south to Victoria. The North Queensland Intellagama population, which extends from Cairns in the south through the wet tropical zone of Townsville to Cooktown in the north, is asserted to be allopatric with the mid-latitude population from Rockhampton south into New South Wales. Hoser (2020) proposed a third species: the Northern water dragon Intellagama wellsandwellingtonorum. howitii as a separate species rather than a subspecies. Two of the specimens cannot be located, the third is D1822 in the collection of the National Museum of Victoria, which was designated the lectotype by Coventry in 1970. Its sub-specific epithet commemorates geologist and magistrate Alfred William Howitt, who collected three specimens from the upper reaches of the Buchan River and sent them to McCoy. According to his description, it differs from the Queensland subspecies in the proportions of the head and the supra-ocular scales. The subspecies howitii was described by Frederick McCoy in 1884 as "the Gippsland water lizard". cocincinus until Wells and Wellington published the genus Intellagama in 1985. The Australian water dragon remained in Physignathus along with the Asian water dragon P. In 1845, Gray separated Physignathus ( P. Gray listed three species of Lophura: Cuvier's ( Lophura Cuvierii Gray), Lesueur's ( Lophura Lesueurii Gray), and beautiful ( Lophura Concinna Gray, Physignathus Concinnus Cuvier). The species was first described by John Edward Gray in 1831 as Lophura lesueurii, from a specimen collected by Lesueur & Péron at "Parramatta" or "Port Jackson". The specific name, lesueurii, is in honor of French naturalist Charles Alexandre Lesueur. lesueurii also have relatively strong dark transverse bars across the back, whereas these dark bars are often much reduced in the Gippsland Water Dragon. lesueurii the chest and belly are usually bright to deep red, particularly in mature males. lesueurii, usually being blackish green, especially in mature males, and the limbs are often quite dark, sometimes even black. howittii are also quite different to Intellagama l. lesueurii typically has a pale, unmarked throat that is sometimes immaculate white in mature males. howittii having orange-yellow streaked with darker striping, which is sometimes quite striking, particularly in mature males, whereas Intellagama l. The gular region of the two subspecies is also quite different, with Intellagama l. Another key difference is the absence of a prominent dark stripe behind the eye in the Gippsland Water Dragon, which is characteristic of the Eastern Water Dragon. The Gippsland Water Dragon may be distinguished by its green-blue colour, especially during the breeding season, when this overall colouration is quite distinct. Visually distinguishing the Gippsland Water Dragon from the Eastern Water Dragon is relatively easy, as long as their skin is reasonably clean and not stained from the water, as identification of the two subspecies depends largely on observable differences in colours and patterns. The Gippsland Water Dragon is generally the more southern of the two species and the more cold adapted and heat sensitive. There may be a small introduced population on the south-east coast of South Australia. The Australian water dragon ( Intellagama lesueurii), which includes the eastern water dragon ( Intellagama lesueurii lesueurii ) and the Gippsland water dragon ( Intellagama lesueurii howittii ) subspecies, is an arboreal agamid species native to eastern Australia from Victoria northwards to Queensland.
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