{"id":15315,"date":"2025-11-15T14:01:41","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T13:01:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.madcham.de\/?p=15315"},"modified":"2025-11-15T14:50:58","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T13:50:58","slug":"brookesia-minima","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madcham.de\/en\/brookesia-minima\/","title":{"rendered":"Brookesia minima"},"content":{"rendered":"
\r\n\t\tCITES quotas<\/strong>
\nNo legal export possible
\n2014\u20132016: 150 animals approved for export each year\t<\/div>\r\n\t\n

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First description: \"\"<\/a><\/h4>\n

Boettger, 1893 \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Origin of the species name:<\/h4>\n

Palaeontologist Oskar B\u00f6ttger, then curator of the Senckenberg Museum in Frankfurt am Main (Germany), named this chameleon species after its body size. Minima<\/em> is Latin and means \u2018the smallest\u2019. At the time of its description, it was indeed the smallest known chameleon. It was not until over a hundred years later that two even smaller ground chameleons were discovered in Madagascar. B\u00f6ttger had already received the dead specimens he described from Carl Ebenau and Anton Stumpff in 1880. Stumpff and Ebenau, general representatives of the German East African Society, travelled extensively in the 1880s, particularly on the island of Nosy Be in Madagascar. Both collected numerous chameleons and sent them to Germany.<\/p>\n

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Distribution:<\/h4>\n

Brookesia minima<\/em> is mainly found on the island of Nosy Be. The island of Nosy Be (which simply means \u2018big island\u2019) is located in the north-west of Madagascar in the Diana region. It covers an area of around 312 km\u00b2 and has a population of over 45,000, most of whom live in the island’s largest town, Andoany (called Hellville in French), and make their living from fishing and tourism. Nosy Be is probably Madagascar’s best-known holiday resort, with Italians in particular flocking here in large numbers. Nosy Be has a small national park called Lokobe, which covers only 7.4 km\u00b2 of the island, and a small reserve of the same name. Otherwise, Nosy Be lives mainly from its many beautiful beaches. The rest of the island consists mainly of secondary vegetation and countless ylang-ylang plantations.<\/p>\n

Unlike all other Evoluticauda<\/em> species (very small Brookesia<\/em> species), Brookesia minima<\/em> also occurs on another neighbouring island called Nosy Komba. The former volcanic island is actually called Nosy Ambariovato, but because of the tame lemurs that live there, it has been called Nosy Komba (akomba<\/em> is Malagasy for lemur) for years. The island is almost circular and has a diameter of about eight kilometres. Nosy Komba is relatively well developed for tourism due to its proximity to Nosy Be. The largest village on the island, Ampangorina, lives from its small harbour and the countless souvenir shops, which make up almost half of the huts. There is also protected forest on Nosy Komba, but it only covers an area of 0.6 km\u00b2.<\/p>\n

Brookesia minima<\/em> lives on both islands exclusively in the very small remnants of rainforest and dry forest, or at least on the edges of forests. It prefers deep foliage and can be found sleeping at night on thin plant parts, twigs and grasses just above the ground. It has not yet been discovered in secondary vegetation or plantations.<\/p>\n

Appearance & size:<\/h4>\n

With a total length of 24.9 to 33.8 mm, Brookesia minima<\/em> is still one of the smallest chameleons in the world today. It is currently the third smallest chameleon after Brookesia micra<\/a><\/em> and Brookesia nana<\/em>. Together with other, only slightly larger tiny species such as Brookesia tuberculata<\/em>, it belongs to the minima<\/em> group named after it. Both sexes of Brookesia minima<\/em> are quite inconspicuous. They do not have enlarged tubercles above their eyes, and although there are usually six longitudinal lines on the back of their heads when viewed from above, these are irregular and do not form a consistent pattern as in other Brookesia<\/em> species. Compared to similar species, Brookesia minima<\/em> appear quite slender with strikingly thin, short arms and legs. Brookesia minima<\/em> has wavy tubercles on both sides of its back. Both sexes are brown to beige in colour. Many of the small ground chameleons have a darker stripe on their sides. Often, a two-part colouring can be observed, with the upper half of the body on the head, back and tail being lighter than the belly, eyes and gular sac.<\/p>\n

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