Researchers working in the Andean cloudforests of Ecuador and Peru have discovered three new species of woodlizards. Since 1881 a total of 15 species of woodlizard have been identified in lowland tropical rainforests in northern parts of South America and Panama.

The species, also known as “Dwarf dragons” are brightly coloured to blend into their tropical environment. They range in size from 3 to 6 inches long. Once thought to be a group with low species diversity, the recent find brings the total to five new species in the last three years and eight new species since 2008. The recent rate of discovery suggest that there are still more wood lizard species waiting to be found.

“I started working with woodlizards in 2006 as part of my postdoc at the Smithsonian Institution under the direction of Kevin de Queiroz. At that time only seven species of woodlizards had been described, and they were recognized in the literature as one of the less diverse groups of South American lizards. During the last few years we doubled the number of known species of woodlizards, showing that the diversity of these conspicuous reptiles had been underestimated. That more than half of the diversity of a group of large, dragon-looking reptiles from South America has been discovered in recent years should be heard by people in charge of conservation and funding agencies,” said Omar Torres-Carvajal of the Museo de Zoología QCAZ in Ecuador in a statement.

Torres-Carvajal is one of the authors of a paper describing the animals in the open source journal ZooKeys.

The researchers found that the new species differed from their closest relatives in scale features, coloration and DNA. All three were found within the “tropical Andes hotspot” of western South America.

The first of the new species Enyalioides altotambo was named for Alto Tambo, the tiny village in northwestern Ecuador where it was found. The females of this first species has a tubular body and a chameleon-like appearance, while the male looks more like an iguana. Normally a woodlizard’s scales and spikes are mismatched and almost random in appearance, while the Alto Tamo lizard’s scales are much more smooth and uniform.

The rough scaled Enyaliodes anisolepis was found on the slopes of southern Equador’s Amazonian Andes. Enyaliodes anisolepis, the third of the dragons has a “traditional mythical dragon look” according to Smithsonian with its body covered in stud-like scales which project outward. The E.anisolepis was found in three different color variations including brown, burnt orange and black with bright green.

The cloud forests, also known as fog forests, of the Andes are part of the South and Central American tropical rainforests but are high enough in altitude that low-lying clouds appear, usually at the level of the tree canopy but sometimes lower.

The Tropical Andes are considered one of the richest areas in the world for biodiversity with 45,000 known plant species, of which 20,000 are native only to the Andes and more than 3,000 vertebrate species, half of which are exclusive to the area.

Due to the threats posed by increasing population and climate change, the area has been a special focus for many scientists in recent years.