Thursday, November 19, 2009

Great Basin Fence Lizard

The Great Basin fence lizard is a subspecies of the western fence lizard. It is found along the coast and in the lower vegetation belts of the mountains of Southern California up into Santa Barbara County, northeastern California, most of Nevada, except for the southern tip, a portion of western Utah, the eastern two-thirds of Oregon, the southeastern tip of Washington and a large portion of western and southern Idaho. It has keeled and pointed dorsal scales, larger than the sagebrush lizard, but smaller than the spiny lizard. It is black, gray or brown with a blotched pattern. The sides of the belly of the male are blue, they have a blue patch on the throat and some scales on the back become blue or greenish when in the light phase. The female has faint or absent blue markings. The underneath surface of the rear limbs are yellow or orange. The fence lizard below is dark with distinctive greenish blue scales.

A closer view of the scales that are more keeled than on the sagebrush lizard, but less keeled than the spiny lizard.


The fence lizard below we had as a pet in a terrarium for awhile.



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