Well, John Avise, who has the longest unbroken record of submitting photos in the history of this site, has finally run out of material. He tells me he has enough for two weeks after this, and then it’s goodbye (perhaps until he gets more photos). We will have a small celebration in two weeks.
Today John gives us photos of lizards. His captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.
Lizards in SoCal. On my nature hikes in Southern California, lizards are by far the most abundant reptiles that I encounter (snakes are much rarer). This week’s post shows several of the lizard species I’ve managed to photograph over the years. More lizard species in the area will probably be shown in next Sunday’s post.
Coast Horned Lizard, Phrynosoma coronatum:
Coastal Whiptail, Aspidoscelis tigris stejnegeri:
Common Chuckwalla, Sauromalus obesus:
Desert Iguana, Dipsosaurus dorsalis:
. . . another Desert Iguana:
. . . yet another Desert Iguana, longitudinal view:
Desert Spiny Lizard, Sceloporus magister, adult male:
. . . .another Desert Spiny Lizard:
. . . yet another Desert Spiny Lizard:
Desert Spiny lizard, headshot:
Ahhh – simple, beautiful, perfect for Sunday.
+1
As my coffee brewed, first thing to look at online, in agreement with Bryan. I like them all, especially the spiny ones and iconic Horned Lizard.
Very nice! I wonder if the specific name for the Chuckwalla ( obesus) is in reference to their defense, which is to wedge between rocks by inflating their lungs.
Excellent. I thought they were Aussie lizards at first.
Anytime (a non-Indonesian) likes to boast to me about their lizards, I show them a picture of a goanna. “Now THAT’S a knif—- a lizard” in my best Paul Hogan voice!
D.A.
NYC
Excellent lizards! Love the Coast Horned Lizard the best. Here the only lizard we have (AFAIK) is the Northern Alligator Lizard. It looks like a miniature of its namesake: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_alligator_lizard. It’s very shy, but not too shy not to bite if threatened.
Nice to see the horned lizard; which we in Texas call a “horny toad.” I haven’t seen one on my property in 20 years. I don’t think the Texas people who first called it “horny,” had any idea of its reproductive cycle, nor that it aint no toad.
I used to live in Texas and witnessed the Fire Ant invasion. They killed just about every ground-living creature, including horned toads and nearly all other terrestrial reptiles and amphibians, plus ground birds and rodents. It was an ecological catastrophe and Texas may never recover.
I now have several species of lizard on my property in East Parker County, probably because of my never-ending battle with the fire ants. I’ve tried lots of things, but I haven’t used pesticides in several years; so my simple solution of hot soapy water on their mounds is working. They move elsewhere; but I use the soapy water around the house as a preventative, and that seems to keep them on “their” acre and away from mine.
Congratulations, I am impressed that you have been able to beat them.
Do you have a sense whether they are not as bad now as they were 30 years ago, or are they still just as prevalent?
I’m not positive about 30 years ago, (I’ve been on this property 25 years) but they seem to be about the same in number as when I first moved to this place. They are more prevalent on my neighbors’ properties (everyone here has a couple acres or more), but that is probably because I fight them; so they move to the neighbors. The mounds about 100 feet from the house that I don’t fight get about two feet in diameter and 8 inches tall. So, maybe they have gotten worse in 25 years.
Interesting, I think the mounds used to be smaller.
We called them “horny toads” in Southern California, too.
Great pictures – especially for someone like me, living at an almost lizard-free latitude (it’s a three-hour drive to where you maybe, if you know just where to go and are lucky, will see a short-horned lizard. Or maybe not.
So it’s great to see the Coast horned lizard. That species has been the subject of revisions over the past few years, however, and the California populations are now known as Phrynosoma blainvillii.
Those are all lovely. It’s so clever of them to be camouflaged above and keep their flashy mate-attracting colors on their undersides!