The Shovel-snouted lizard
Aporosaura anchietae

The shovel-snouted lizard is a remarkable sand-diving denizen of the dunes in Namibia's moist coastal desert. When foraging on dune surfaces during the heat of the day, it resorts to a curious thermoregulatory dance to cool off. Walking high over the sand as if on stilts, it alternatively raises opposite front and hind legs into the air, using the base of its tail as support. On cool days it remains above the surface for most of the day, while on hot days, especially when dry winds are blowing, it might not appear at all.

Aporosaura belongs to a unique community of interdependent dune-dwelling creatures which have evolved with specialised adaptations to ensure their survival in the Namib Desert, utilising windblown detritus from the interior as food and fog from the ocean as a source of moisture.

While Aporosaura is mainly vegetarian, it also feeds on insects. It can survive on dry grass and seeds, as it has the ability to break down the accumulated fats into water.

With its delicate, pearl-gold sheen brightening up its mottled light and dark-brown dorsal pattern, it is an attractive and captivating creature, easily identified by its unusual, flattened snout, which has a long cutting edge. An average specimen is between 10 and 11 centimetres long.

As with other reptiles, the body temperature of Aporosaura assumes the temperature of its surroundings. To increase its body heat, it emerges during the day when the surface of the sand has been sufficiently warmed by the sun. When the surface becomes too hot, it either dives back into the cooler sand below with a rapid corkscrewing movement, races up to the crest to cool off in the breeze, or resorts to its thermoregulatory foot-lifting dance.

It is thought that its pineal or "third eye" plays an important role as a sensory organ in its adjustment to variations in temperature.


see a video of it here -->

http://www.orusovo.com/guidebook/content6.htm