{"id":835,"date":"2014-09-05T20:04:43","date_gmt":"2014-09-05T18:04:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madcham.com\/wordpress\/?p=835"},"modified":"2025-11-15T17:50:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T16:50:08","slug":"calumma-hofreiteri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madcham.de\/en\/calumma-hofreiteri\/","title":{"rendered":"Calumma nasutum"},"content":{"rendered":"
\r\n\t\tCITES quotas<\/strong>
\nNo legal export possible
\nQuotas under the former species name Calumma nasutum<\/em> can be found here<\/a>\t<\/div>\r\n\t\n

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

Glaw, Agne, Pr\u00f6tzel, Gehring, K\u00f6hler, Preick, Ratsoavina, Straube, Wollenberg Valero, Crottini & Vences, 2025\u00a0 \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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

Frank Glaw from the Bavarian State Collection of Zoology in Munich, Germany, together with many co-authors, named the small chameleon after the German biologist Michael Hofreiter. Hofreiter teaches at the University of Potsdam, Germany, and mainly focuses on palaeogenomics. He supported the team of authors in the genetic analysis of the type specimen of Calumma nasutum<\/em> and many other museum specimens of amphibians and reptiles from Madagascar. From 2020 to 2025, this species was considered to be Calumma nasutum<\/em>, after biologist David Pr\u00f6tzel from the Bavarian State Collection of Zoology in Munich, Germany, wrote the first detailed publication<\/a> on the very complex relationships and species relationships within the nasutum<\/em> complex. In 2025, it emerged that another, very similar species is actually the \u201creal\u201d Calumma nasutum<\/em> as described by Dum\u00e9ril and Bibron in 1836. Therefore, the small chameleon described on this page needed a new species name of its own.<\/p>\n

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Distribution:<\/h4>\n

The distribution area of Calumma hofreiteri<\/em> is mainly limited to the region around the Andasibe-Mantadia National Park in the eastern highlands of Madagascar. This includes the national park itself, but also surrounding protected areas such as Mitsinjo and Maromizaha-Vohidrazana. Calumma hofreiteri<\/em> occurs both in dense rainforest and at the edges of the forest, and more rarely in secondary vegetation. South of Moramanga, this chameleon species can also be found in a small forest fragment near Tarzanville and in a rainforest near Anosibe An’Ala. In Andasibe and the surrounding area, Calumma hofreiteri<\/em> is, in our experience, significantly rarer than Calumma emelinae<\/em><\/a>, which also occurs there.<\/p>\n

Another population that is genetically very similar to Calumma hofreiteri<\/em> lives in the Sorata Massif in northern Madagascar. However, the distance to the other populations is considerable, so it is not yet clear whether this population is a separate chameleon species. This area is largely inaccessible to travellers, so there have been few observations outside of scientific expeditions. If the animals in Sorata are counted as Calumma hofreiteri<\/em>, the species occurs at altitudes of 881 to 1934 metres above sea level.<\/p>\n

Appearance and size:<\/h4>\n

Calumma hofreiteri<\/em> is among the small chameleons and, with a total length of 8,9 to 9,3 centimetres, is a real tiny creature. The males have a round, elastic and relatively large rostral appendage, which is always longer than 1.5 mm. An obvious feature of the males of Calumma nasutum<\/em> is the high casque (1.5-2 mm), which is very similar to that of Calumma fallax<\/em><\/a>. In females, the rostral appendage is smaller. The supralabial scale directly below the rostral appendage is not integrated into the rostral appendage itself. The males have a clearly developed dorsal crest, while the females do not. As a result, it is unfortunately not yet possible to reliably distinguish the females of Calumma hofreiteri<\/em> from those of Calumma emelinae<\/em><\/a> based on their external appearance. The scales on the arms and legs are slightly larger than those on the body. The colouring of the males is mainly limited to beige on the body and a light green on the head, arms and legs. The females are coloured a slightly less conspicuous light beige. When excited, Calumma nasutum<\/em> can show very slightly visible turquoise-blue bands on the body.<\/p>\n

Calumma hofreiteri<\/em> can be distinguished from Calumma nasutum<\/em> \u2013 in addition to its distribution area \u2013 by the dorsal crest on the males and a smaller and shorter nasal appendage overall. Calumma hofreiteri<\/em> differs from the extremely similar species Calumma fallax<\/em> \u2013 apart from its distribution area \u2013 by a shorter tail, a smaller rostral appendage and certain windows in the skull bones (which can only be seen on a CT scan or in dead animals).<\/p>\n

Good to know:<\/h4>\n

Calumma hofreiteri belongs to the so-called nasutum<\/em> clade. This clade includes a large number of small chameleons from Madagascar with soft rostral appendages. In 2020, Pr\u00f6tzel, Scherz et al<\/a>. defined Calumma nasutum<\/em> more precisely \u2013 the current Calumma hofreiteri<\/em> was therefore listed as Calumma nasutum<\/em> between 2020 and 2025. The animals described as Calumma nasutum<\/em> throughout Madagascar until 2020, on the other hand, now largely belong to Calumma radamanus<\/em><\/a> and the radamanus<\/em> clade. The latter still includes many undescribed species. Due to the long-standing problem of the lack of genetic differentiation between different species, countless chameleons have been exported since 2014 under the name Calumma nasutum<\/em>, which are not Calumma nasutum<\/em> at all, but other chameleon species.<\/p>\n

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