‘Large’ camouflaged creature found on Angola rocks. It’s a ‘cryptic’ new species
In a savanna of southwestern Africa, a “large” creature climbed along some boulders. Its remote home and camouflaged coloring helped it go largely unnoticed — until it caught the attention of visiting scientists.
It turned out to be a new species.
A team of researchers spent several years doing “extensive” wildlife surveys “in some of the less explored coastal regions of southern Angola,” according to a study published June 27 in the peer-reviewed journal Ecology and Evolution. Some of their searches focused on a “poorly understood” group of lizards known as Namib day geckos.
Between 2020 and 2025, researchers found a dozen “large” camouflaged geckos that didn’t look like any known species, the study said. Intrigued, scientists took a closer look at the lizards, analyzed their DNA and realized they’d discovered a new species: Rhoptropus crypticus, or the cryptic Namib day gecko.
Cryptic Namib day geckos are considered “large sized,” reaching just under 4 inches in length, the study said. They have “elongated” fingers and toes.
Photos show the tan-gray coloring of the new species. Its back has orange and gray markings with a scattering of darker brown blotches.
Researchers named the new species after the Latin word for “‘hidden’ or ‘concealed’” because of its “cryptic or camouflaged nature.”
Cryptic Namib day geckos are rock-dwelling lizards “found moving among vertical surfaces of large boulders in the spiny arid savanna,” the study said. Much about their lifestyle and behavior remains unknown.
Researchers suspect the new species lives in “high isolation” because its preferred habitat is “quite rare in the area.”
So far, cryptic Namib day geckos have been found in a “very restricted area” of Namibe Province, a coastal region of southwestern Angola that borders Namibia. Angola also borders the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo and Zambia.
The new species was identified by its size, scale pattern, coloring and other subtle physical features, the study said. DNA analysis found the new species had at least 16% genetic divergence from other related geckos.
The research team included Javier Lobón-Rovira, Matthew Heinicke, Aaron Bauer, Werner Conradie and Pedro Vaz Pinto.
The team also discovered two more new species: the large-spotted Namib day gecko and the miniature Namib day gecko.
This story was originally published July 4, 2025 at 1:13 PM with the headline "‘Large’ camouflaged creature found on Angola rocks. It’s a ‘cryptic’ new species."
