Thursday, April 16, 2009

western fence lizard
Sceloporus occidentalis

I know very little about lizards and initially guessed this was the very common western fence lizard. I looked at the range maps, but nothing near Pinnacles looked quite like the one shown above. There's so much variation in appearance within a lizard species/subspecies. Solely based on appearance, I think this could be a southern sagebrush lizard (Sceloporus graciosus vandenburgianus). However, this is not the sagebrush subspecies found in the area, nor is the species listed on the official Pinnacles herps list, so I'm keeping the western fence lizard ID.

Don't know if this was hanging around the big pile of poop for a reason or not.

ps 06/25/11 - I've edited the text above to reflect a better understanding of lizard species uncertainty.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Maybe to catch flies?