Portuguese M1964 Lizard
Developed as a vertical adaptation of the French lizard pattern (tenue léopard), Portuguese lizard camouflage first saw issue with the Air Force's paratroopers in the mid-to-late 1950s before spreading through the Army. Sources disagree on exactly when the distinctive vertical orientation replaced the original horizontal French stripes — estimates range from the mid-1950s to 1963 — but by the time Portugal's colonial wars in Africa began in earnest, the vertical pattern was standard issue.
Those wars — known in Portugal as the Guerra do Ultramar, the Overseas War — ran from 1961 to 1974 across three separate fronts: Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau, fought against nationalist independence movements including the MPLA, FNLA, and UNITA in Angola, FRELIMO in Mozambique, and the PAIGC in Guinea-Bissau. Unlike other European powers retreating from Africa through the 1950s and '60s, Portugal's Estado Novo regime tried to hold its overseas territories by force, committing to a 13-year counterinsurgency campaign across difficult, often heavily forested terrain — conditions the vertical lizard pattern was built to work in. The war ended abruptly in 1974, when a military coup in Lisbon (the Carnation Revolution) overthrew the Estado Novo government; the new regime halted the fighting almost immediately and moved swiftly toward granting the colonies independence.
Multiple colorway variations of the pattern exist, including a reddish-brown "red lizard" variant that saw service almost exclusively in Africa. The pattern's reach also went well beyond the forces that issued it — several of the guerrilla movements fighting Portuguese rule wore captured or acquired lizard-pattern uniforms of their own, as did Rhodesian and South African special forces and mercenaries operating in the region's later, related conflicts. It outlived Portuguese colonial rule entirely: variants remain in service with elite Portuguese units today, and Mozambique's post-independence armed forces continued issuing their own version, still worn by the Fuzileiros (Marines) in a form clearly descended from the original design.
