Western Wildlife

Lizards

Check back soon. Grant and I will be adding to this page often.

Red Headed Spiny Lizard

Sage Brush Lizards bathed in the sun while resting on the Santa Fe style, clay buildings.Their blue bellies would show out from the side. Plateau Striped Whiptail Lizards bolted at the sight of Grant and I, so we haven't caught one yet.This lizard is one of my favorite so far, with yellow stripes down it's back and long blue tail. The short horned Lizard we've only seen once in our time at Mesa Verde. The small, fat, and short lizard was just sitting on a rock and I reached down a picked him up with no struggling. At Zion the campground was full of lizards, primarily Yellow Backed Spiny Lizards and Red Headed Spiny Lizards. There was one massive lizard that lived in a small brick structure. Every day Grant and I would try to catch it but we never did. At Arches National Park we found four new species of lizards. I spotted the Painted  Desert Whiptail first,they were strolling through the dormant grasses and the Scrub Oak. They are yellow orange and splattered with black dots. we only managed to catch a tail and a picture. The next lizard was the Tree Lizard.These lizards always looked like they hadn't eaten in two weeks. You could see their ribs through their wrinkly skin. Grant was the only one who saw the Common Side Blotched Lizard. It All he caught was a blue tail that dis-attached from the red body. The lizard disappeared into the rock before he could snap a photo. The last lizard we found at our campsite. It was a lesser Earless Lizard. So far we've seen nine different lizards and we'll probably see more.

Yellow Backed Spiny Lizard

Short Horned Lizard

Sage Brush Lizard