Moving on the dazzling salt flat are cryptile lizards, part of the agamid family which has populated the warm regions of Africa, Asia, Europe and Australia since well before humans. When the lizard is hunting, it scampers along and raises itself onto its hind legs. Then it opens up the frill around its neck. Superficially, it resembles the frilled lizard, an agamid that lived mainly in northern Australia and southern New Guinea during the Quaternary period. But unlike the frilled lizard, which had an unbroken large ruff of skin, the cryptile's frill forms a net which is covered in a film of sticky mucus secreted by pores on the individual strands.