The beautiful Red Head

So while hanging around my room today at school looking for anything awesome to shoot, a little creature ran past my viewfinder and when I followed I saw a beauty with a black body and a red head, an Agama Lizard.



Lizards are quite common here in Africa especially Nigeria and they are of different species and of different colors. The Red head Agama Agama is one of the most common here too. They can resist the high temperatures of the afternoons but when too hot they take cover on walls and trees. They feed mostly on insects which are their favorite food. They like to hunt and are very active at day and take shelter in wall cracks at night. They often engage in fights and like to bob their heads (especially at females during courtship) and they also run quite fast especially when they sense danger.





The most common female lizards have green and black spots on their head and yellow spots on their body. This one here was being chased by the red head above, that’s what the race past my viewfinder was about. Sadly I couldn’t get a picture of them together. The females also engage in fights too and they lay their eggs in sand which acts as a natural incubator.



Lizards are quite important members of the ecosystem and thanks to them the amount of insects around is kept in check. I shot these images with my Nikon D5100 and a 55-200mm zoom lens.