Mo Ganji: Tarzan Chameleon | Tarzan-Chamäleon | Calumma tarzan | No. 221/250 from work group 8/99

Mo Ganji turns toward the Tarzan chameleon — a small arboreal reptile restricted to fragmented forest patches in eastern Madagascar — by letting the single line move toward the core of being rather than adaptation or camouflage. The line condenses the presence into a reduced coherence, setting aside color change, grasping limbs and ecological specificity so that what remains is not depiction, but essence. In Ganji’s understanding, the line is never exclusive to the chameleon; it remains open, reminding us that every form is also a human concept temporarily assigned to a living reality.

Calumma tarzan is listed as Critically Endangered (CR) on the IUCN Red List. The species is known from only a handful of locations within a very small area of Madagascar, where its forest habitat has been severely fragmented. Population size is believed to be extremely low, and remaining subpopulations are isolated from one another.

The principal threats include ongoing deforestation for agriculture, charcoal production, and settlement expansion. Because the Tarzan chameleon depends on intact forest structure and has limited dispersal ability, even minor habitat loss can result in local extinction. Its narrow range leaves no buffer against continued landscape change.

Ganji’s single line opens a space in which the chameleon can be encountered beyond concealment or novelty. It allows the being to be perceived as a life bound to precise conditions, suggesting how existence can vanish quietly when the environments that once held it together are reduced beyond the threshold of continuity.