A Comprehensive in-situ Conservation Program for the Guatemalan Beaded Lizard, Heloderma charlesboge

Lock, Brad Department of Herpetology and Aquatics Oklahoma City Zoo and Botanical Garden Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA block@okczoo.org

Conservation Heloderma is a long-term conservation program targeting the critically endangered Guatemalan Beaded Lizard (Heloderma charlesbogerti). Conservation Heloderma is holistic in focus, consisting of natural history and genetic diversity studies; robust educational programs engaging more than 30,000 school children to date, habitat restoration germinating and planting more than 70,000 trees from our own dedicated nursery in conjunction with the local communities we work with and finally range extension and habitat preservation with a new population of H. charlesbogerti discovered in 2018 and the establishment of a 2000 acre protected area preserve with some of the most intact if the not the most intact contiguous habitat extent for this dry forest ecosystem in Guatemala.