The Northern Forest Crested Lizard is a subspecies of Forest Crested Lizard, an agamid lizard with the Latin name Calotes emma and known in Thai as king kah kaew neua, which translates as ‘northern crystal lizard’.

It is overall brownish and like the Southern Forest Crested Lizard (fig.), it has a spike above each eye and two spikes above the tympanum, yet they are smaller than those of the southern subspecies.