Kinyongia carpenteri

Kinyongia carpenteri, commonly called Carpenter's chameleon or the helmeted chameleon, is a species of chameleon, a lizard in the family Chamaeleonidae. The species is native to central Africa.

Kinyongia carpenteri
Conservation status
Near Threatened  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Reptilia
Order:	Squamata
Suborder:	Iguania
Family:	Chamaeleonidae
Genus:	Kinyongia
Species:	K. carpenteri
Binomial name
Kinyongia carpenteri (Parker, 1929)
Synonyms[2]
Chamaeleo carpenteri Parker, 1929 Bradypodion carpenteri — Nečas, 1999 Kinyongia carpenteri — Tilbury, Tolley & Branch, 2006

Geographic range

K. carpenteri has a geographic range limited to the mountain highlands on the border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Habitat

The preferred natural habitat of K. carpenteri is forest, at altitudes of 1,700–2,300 m (5,600–7,500 ft).^[1]

Reproduction

K. carpenteri is oviparous.^[1][2]

Etymology

The specific name, carpenteri, honors the type specimen's collector, British physician and entomologist Geoffrey Douglas Hale Carpenter.^[3][4]

Taxonomy

Originally named in the genus Chamaeleo, the species C. carpenteri was moved into the genus Bradypodion prior to its current classification.^[5][6][7] With the move into the genus Kinyongia, the masculine ending to the specific epithets of other species in the genus needed to be modified to match the feminine generic name.^[8][9]