The specific name, vandami, is in honor of South African Herpetologist Gerhardus Petrus Frederick Van Dam (died 1927).

[1] The preferred natural habitats of Z. vandami are sand, sandy-soils, and humus-rich soils.

[1] One of the smaller species in its genus, Z. vandami usually has a snout-to-vent length (SVL) of 13–17 cm (5.1–6.7 in).

It is uniformly dark purplish brown dorsally, and light purple ventrally.

[1] Nota bene: A trinomial authority in parentheses indicates that the subspecies was originally described in a genus other than Zygaspis.