Vanzo’s Whiptail Needs All the Weapons it Can Get

This dinky lizard is also called the Saint Lucia whiptail, but “Vanzo’s” sounds cooler and I needed something beginning with “v”. Vanzo himself actually was cool, but I’ll get to that. As well as the reason it needs every weapon it can get its claws on.

As its name suggests, this little reptile has a whip-like tail, which can be detached – still squiggling – leaving its attacker baffled and distracted while it makes its getaway. It can take months to grow back though, and if you’re a male, that’s going to affect the flashiness of your outfit. While female Vanzo’s whiptails are creamy-brown,

the males have a yellow belly and a turquoise tail and sides.

Said yellow belly isn’t figurative though, for either sex, because it will happily snack on scorpions. Insects and figs also have a welcome place on its menu, and it tends to hunt during the day after soaking up some rays.

You’d think with a detachable tail and leg armour – its genus name Cnemidophorus literally means “wears greaves” – Vanzo’s whiptail would be pretty safe. So why does it need all the weapons it can get?

The fact that it’s the only “greaves wearer” in the Lesser Antilles should already ring some alarm bells, and thanks to spotty records, we’re not sure if it was ever on Saint Lucia to begin with. It’s only found on the surrounding islands like Maria Major and Maria Minor, and thanks to a teeny dating pool, the Maria crowd might be getting a bit too close for comfort, enough that they might be a distinct species!

But that’s not the main problem. That would be the stowaways.

Rats are obviously bad news for you and your eggs if you’re a small lizard. And you’re going to see a lot of them if you live on an island with a lot of boat traffic. Unfortunately, the larger mongoose can also make an appearance.

In 1995, 39 Vanzo’s whiptails were released on Praslin Island as part of a conservation drive, and 25 of them were wiped out by just one Indian mongoose (Herpestes auropunctatus)!

On a happier note, seven more pairs were released there after the mongoose was removed, and they formed the base of the Praslin Island population seen today. And how about this for poetic justice: Vanzo’s whiptail was reintroduced to Rat Island once all the rats had been er, “sent on holiday”.

So all is not lost yet. It just has to contend with this, as well as severe inbreeding, population fragmentation, and other joys such as flooding, forest fires and storm surges. Cheers for that, climate change.

There’s also a question mark over how many, if any, are illegally collected for the exotic pet trade. No wonder it’s critically endangered.

It has a pretty cool heritage though. According to Wright and Vitt, the “ribbon-adorned greaves-wearers” group (Cnemidophorus lemniscatus) may have been the root of other North American lizard groups. And some of the regular “greaves-wearers” don’t even have males. Desert grassland whiptails (Cnemidophorus uniparens) are entirely female and reproduce solo, but regardless of how they get it on, all the lizards in this genus lay eggs.

Last but not least, as I mentioned earlier, Vanzo’s whiptail was named after someone called Vanzo. His full name was Paulo Emílio Vanzolini (1924-2013), and he discovered a life-long love of reptiles thanks to hating school.

To encourage him to do well in his exams, his father bribed him with a bike, and it worked! Vanzo aced them, and used said bike to visit the Istituto Butanan, a Brazilian research centre which had snake pits for collecting venom. And so Vanzo’s passion was born.

Here are some other amazing things he did, in addition to keeping live snakes at his house:

• He became a corporal in the horse-mounted cavalry.
• He was a musician and poet, and his most famous composition was “Ronda“.
• He helped found one of the most important research institutions in Brazil, the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP).
• There are 14 species named after him, and 2 lizard genera.

So, Vanzo’s whiptail, we’d hate to see you get wiped out anyway, but even more so since you have such an awesome legacy!

Vanzo’s Whiptail Fact File

What? A small lizard that may or may not have been native to Saint Lucia.

Scientific name? Cnemidophorus vanzoi.

Its genus name means “wearing greaves” (leg armour), from the Greek knēmid- or knēmis, meaning greaves, plus “-phoros” or phorous, meaning “wearing” or “carrying”.

And vanzoi simply means “Vanzo’s”, in honour of Professor Paulo Emílio “Vanzo” Vanzolini, a famous Brazilian herpetologist and musician(!).

Where? Currently restricted to a couple of small islands off the coast of Saint Lucia in the Caribbean, namely Maria Major and Maria Minor, and it has been reintroduced to Praslin and Rat Islands at various times. Its preferred digs are forests and scrubland.

How big? Males are max 12cm / 4.7 inches from snout to vent (rear end!), females are max 9.5cm / 3.7 inches.

First recorded? Under the name Ameiva vanzoi in 1966 by Baskin and Williams. No idea what Ameiva means; it might be a mish-mash of New Latin and an undocumented Brazilian language according to Merriam Webster. Due to a lack of tongue sheath, it was later bumped under the Cnemidophorus genus.

Diet? Mostly insects and scorpions, but also carrion and sometimes figs (Fiscus citrifolia).

Behaviour? The females are egg-laying (oviparous), and both sexes are day-dwellers instead of night-owls.

Endangered? Yes, Critically, thanks to invasive species such as mongoose and rats, a dating scene that’s either unreachable or too close for comfort, forest fires, storm surges, and other delights brought about by climate change.

Featured image credit:

“St. Lucia whiptail“, © Joshua LaPergola, CC BY NC SA.

Just to prove I’m not fibbing:

“Ameiva“. No date. Merriam-Webster.com.

Baskin, Jonathan N., and Williams, Ernest E. 1966. “The Lesser Antillean Ameiva (Sauria, Teiidae) Re-evaluation, Zoogeography and the Effects of Predation“. Studies on the Fauna of Curaçao and other Caribbean Islands 23(1):144-176.

Brown, Heidi. No date. “Assessing the Translocation of the St Lucia Whiptail Lizard Cnemidophorus vanzoi : A Retrospective Analysis of Abundance, Demographics and Habitat Utilization“. Masters Thesis, Imperial College London.

Caramaschi, Ulisses. 2013. “Paulo Emílio Vanzolini (1924–2013)“. Phyllomedusa 12(2):83–88.

“Cnemidophorus“. No date. Merriam-Webster.com.

Daltry, J.C. 2016. “Cnemidophorus vanzoi (errata version published in 2017)“. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2016: e.T4997A115071448.

Denardo, Dale. 2006. “Reproductive biology“, in Reptile Medicine and Surgery (Second Edition).

Dickinson H.C., Fa J.E. & Lenton S.M. 2001. “Microhabitat use by a translocated population of St. Lucia whiptail lizards (Cnemidophorus vanzoi)“. Animal Conservation, 4, 143-156

Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. No date. “Lesser Antilles“. Britannica.com.

“How an asexual lizard reproduces alone“. 2020. National Geographic.

“Lemniscate“. No date Merriam-Webster.com.

Lovern, Matthew B. 2011 “Hormones and reproductive cycles in lizards“, in Hormones and Reproduction of Vertebrates: Reptiles

Lyndon John, Cecil, 1999. “Population and habitat of the St. Lucia whiptail lizard (Cnemidophorus vanzoi) on Praslin Island, St. Lucia (West Indies)“.

Mitton, Jeff. 2020. “Tiger whiptail lizards come in many forms“. Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine.

“-phorous“. No date. Merriam-Webster.com.

Postbeeld. No date. “2008, WWF, Cnemidophorus vanzoi 4v“.

Presch, William. 1971. “Tongue Structure of the Teiid Lizard Genera Ameiva and Cnemidophorus with a Reallocation of Ameiva vanzoi“. Journal of Herpetology 5(3/4):183-185.

“Whiptails (Cnemidophorus spp.)“. No date. Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.

Young, Richard P. et al. 2006. “The St Lucia whiptail lizard Cnemidophorus vanzoi: a conservation dilemma?” Oryx 40(3):358-361.