The animal on the cover of Fluent Python is a Namaqua sand lizard (Pedioplanis namaquensis), found throughout Namibia in arid savannah and semi-desert regions.
The Namaqua sand lizard has a black body with four white stripes running down its back, brown legs with white spots, a white belly, and a long, pinkish-brown tail. It is one of the fastest of the lizards active during the day and feeds on small insects. It inhabits sparsely vegetated sand gravel flats. Female Namaqua sand lizards lay between three to five eggs in November, and these lizards spends the rest of winter dormant in burrows that they dig near the base of bushes.
The current conservation status of the Namaqua sand lizard is of “Least Concern.” Many of the animals on O’Reilly covers are endangered; all of them are important to the world.
The cover illustration is by Karen Montgomery, based on a black and white engraving from Wood’s Natural History. The cover fonts are Gilroy Semibold and Guardian Sans. The text font is Adobe Minion Pro; the heading font is Adobe Myriad Condensed; and the code font is Dalton Maag’s Ubuntu Mono.