Through the years, I've posted photos of horned lizards on this blog. Never thought more about it. But I read where someone is doing a horned lizard study in Texas and wanted sightings reported. About that time a visitor to the oasis captured one, not knowing what it was. I told him it was a Horned Lizard and to release it. Luckily, I thought to snap a cell phone shot of it first.
I posted it on iNaturalist as "Horned Lizard," not knowing there were different species of horned lizards. Soon it got ID'd as a Round-tailed Horned Lizard. That made we wonder what other species of them we had in the Big Bend. Seems there are three, but only two in Alpine or the Christmas Mountains that I'm likely to encounter. (The third, Greater Short-horned Lizard, is restricted to the higher elevations of the Davis and Guadalupe Mountains.)
Now I'm inspired to post my other horned lizard photos to iNat. I have photos of the Round-tailed and Texas Horned Lizard. I've posted both previously to this blog as simply "Horned Lizard." I've now edited those posts to be more specific.
Here's the one that started my journey into two horned lizard species. Always so much to learn, and so fun learning it, that I had to share it here.
The other species I've photograghed, Texas Horned Lizard, was from Alpine in July of 2020.
Now you probably know everything, or more than, I know about horned lizards in west Texas. I'm still on a learning adventure!
5 comments:
Excellent! Staying on a learning adventure keeps us young.
Great to see them, I have not seen one in a long time I think due to the fire ants.
We used to find them as kids in Austin, but we always knew them as "Horny Toads" :-)
I found one in Alpine years ago and it was beautiful!! I heard that feral and house cats can severely lower the population.
Yes, they are quite rare both at CMO and in Alpine. It's always a thrill to see one.
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