Biologists working on the Indonesian island of Sumatra recently encountered a nose-horned dragon lizard which had been lost to science for 127 years.
Sumatra’s indigenous Batak people had depicted a lizard with a pointy horn at the end
Biologists working on the Indonesian island of Sumatra recently encountered a nose-horned dragon lizard which had been lost to science for 127 years.
Sumatra’s indigenous Batak people had depicted a lizard with a pointy horn at the end of its snout, like a rhinoceros, in their artwork for centuries, and it holds a prominent place in their creation stories. But the lizard remained unknown to the rest of the world until Elio Modigliani stumbled across it on an expedition to the shores of Lake Toba – the submerged caldera of the Toba Supervolcano – in 1891. Modigliani preserved the specimen he’d found in alcohol, which faded its brilliant green scales and yellow spikes to mottled blue and white. It was the last member of its species any scientist would see, alive or dead, until 2018.
A Real-Life Cryptid
Based on that single discolored specimen, Modigliani’s lizard became one of five reptile species, along with one amphibian, named after him. Biologists formally named the nose-horned lizard Harpesaurus modiglianii in 1933, a year after its namesake’s death. H. modiglianii is a relative of the more familiar bearded dragon; both are members of the famil