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flying lizard

 
Dictionary: flying lizard
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n.
Any of various small tropical Asian lizards of the genus Draco, having winglike membranes on each side that may be spread to enable it to glide through the air. Also called flying dragon.


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Animal Encyclopedia: Flying lizard
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Draco volans

SUBFAMILY

Agaminae

TAXONOMY

Draco volans Linnaeus, 1758, Java, Indonesia.

OTHER COMMON NAMES

None known.

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS

These are slender, long-legged, small lizards with folding ribs that expand to form a winglike structure. At rest, these dermal sails are folded along the body, giving the lizards a slim appearance.

DISTRIBUTION

The species inhabits the Indonesian islands, including Borneo, Java, Sumatra, Sulawesi, and Timor. They also occur in Thailand, western Malaysia, and the Philippines.

HABITAT

Their habitat is open forests and dense rainforests of both lowlands and highlands.

BEHAVIOR

With their "wings" extended, these long-tailed, lightly built agamids glide gracefully between trees, losing altitude along the way. When gliding, these delicate, slender lizards use their tails to steer and sometimes can travel as far as 55 yd (50 m). Expert hang gliders, they rise up and stall at exactly the right moment to make a gentle landing. Upon landing on an adjacent tree, with the head up, they scamper up the tree, gaining elevation in preparation for their next flight. When on the ground, flying lizards are clumsy and vulnerable to predators.

FEEDING ECOLOGY AND DIET

The species feeds almost exclusively on ants and termites.

REPRODUCTIVE BIOLOGY

Wings of males and females are of different colors, which allows these lizards to identify the sex of another at a distance. Males defend territories, courting females by extending their brightly colored throat dewlap appendages, much like anoles do in the New World. Females lay one to four eggs. Their unusual eggs are elongated and spindle-shaped, with dense calcium carbonate "caps" at each end. The function of the caps has not been studied, but they could be deposits for developing embryos.

CONSERVATION STATUS

Not threatened.

SIGNIFICANCE TO HUMANS

None known.

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: flying dragon
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Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Columbia Encyclopedia
flying dragon, gliding lizard of the genus Draco, found in tropical forests of SE Asia. There are about 15 species. Most are about 8 in. (20 cm) long. On either side of the lizard's body are thin, winglike folds of skin supported by five to seven ribs that extend from the body. With its "wings" extended the lizard is capable of gliding for distances of up to 30 ft (9 m). The wings are often brightly colored, sometimes with stripes or spots, but when they are folded the body, greenish with a pale yellow belly, blends with the foliage. Flying dragons have slender legs, tapering tails, and brilliantly colored throat sacs, typically blue in the female and yellow-orange with a blue spot in the male. They live in trees, rarely descending to the ground, and feed on arboreal ants. They are classified in the phylum Chordata, subphylum Vertebrata, class Reptilia, order Squamata, family Agamidae.

WordNet: flying dragon
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Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.

The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: any of several small tropical Asian lizards capable of gliding by spreading winglike membranes on each side of the body
  Synonyms: dragon, flying lizard

Wikipedia: The Flying Lizards
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This article is about the band. For other uses, see Flying lizard.
The Flying Lizards

The Flying Lizard's debut album.
Background information
Origin United Kingdom
Genres Experimental rock
Years active 1978-1984
Labels Virgin, Statik
Former members
David Toop
Steve Beresford
Michael Upton
David Cunningham
Vivien Goldman
Robert Fripp
Bob Black
Deborah Evans-Stickland
Patti Palladin
Peter Laurence Gordon
Sally Peterson

The Flying Lizards were a British experimental rock band, who were formed in 1978 in London, England.[1] They are best remembered as New wave one-hit wonders, thanks to their deliberately eccentric cover of Barrett Strong's "Money", which became a surprise UK and US chart success in 1979.[1][2][3]

Contents

Career

Formed by and led by record producer David Cunningham, the group was a loose collective of avant-garde and free improvising musicians, such as David Toop and Steve Beresford as instrumentalists, plus Deborah Evans-Strickland, Patti Palladin, and Vivien Goldman as main vocalists. It also boasted the painter, Michael Upton.

Cunningham's recording contract with Virgin Records was for only two singles, but when "Money" started to climb the charts, they signed him to a new contract.[1] The group released their debut album, The Flying Lizards late in 1979. The album included two songs - "HerStory" and "The Window" - written and sung by Goldman.[4] Their single issues included their postmodern cover versions of songs such as Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues" and "Money".[5]

The album sold enough copies to justify Virgin financing another Flying Lizards album, but 1981's Fourth Wall put its focus on the eclectic experimentalism of Cunningham's music. Despite the presence of another mangled cover of a pop standard (Curtis Mayfield's "Move On Up") the album was a commercial disappointment though it received strong reviews.[1]

Their 1984 album Top Ten consisted entirely of covers, done in a deliberately emotionless, harsh and robotic style, including James Brown's "Sex Machine", and Leonard Cohen's, "Suzanne". By this time, Cunningham was devoting much of his time to producing other artists (including This Heat and Wayne County). After releasing 1984's Top Ten, which combined Cunningham's eccentric take on pop with electronic textures and the vocals of Sally Peterson, Cunningham retired the Flying Lizards.[1]

Their version of Barrett Strong's "Money" remained popular, and was used in the film soundtracks for The Wedding Singer, Empire Records, Charlie's Angels and Lord of War, as well as in the Emmy and Golden Globe award-winning American television medical drama, Nip/Tuck.

An album of dub instrumentals, The Secret Dub Life of the Flying Lizards, recorded by David Cunningham mostly in 1978 was finally released in 1995.[1]

With only one single making the UK Top 40,[2] the Flying Lizards join the list of one-hit wonders; a list that includes other UK punk or new wave acts such as The Banned, John Cooper Clarke, Jilted John, 999, Radio Stars, Rich Kids and The Vibrators.

Band members

Discography

Albums

Singles

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f "Biography by Mark Deming". Allmusic.com. http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&searchlink=FLYING|LIZARDS&sql=11:a9foxqy5ldae~T1. Retrieved 6 October 2009. 
  2. ^ a b Roberts, David (2006). British Hit Singles & Albums (19th ed.). London: Guinness World Records Limited. p. 206. ISBN 1-904994-10-5. 
  3. ^ "Allmusic ((( The Flying Lizards > Charts & Awards > Billboard Singles )))". http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&searchlink=FLYING|LIZARDS&sql=11:a9foxqy5ldae~T51. 
  4. ^ Allen, Mark (April 2001). "The Flying Lizards: A Pop Band Arranged According to the Laws of Chance". #6 (Sound Collector). http://www.markallencam.com/soundcollector2001.html. Retrieved 2008-11-18. 
  5. ^ a b c d Strong, Martin C. (2003) "Flying Lizards", in The Great Indie Discography, Canongate, ISBN 1 84195 335 0

External links


This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 

 

Copyrights:

Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Animal Encyclopedia. Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia. Copyright © 2005 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/.  Read more
WordNet. WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "The Flying Lizards".  Read more