Curious About Yarrow’s Spiny Lizard

Can you #FindThatLizard? You're searching for an adult Yarrow's spiny lizard, Sceloporus jarrovi. Since the scholarship recently opened, I figured that I would highlight one of my favorite species.

I always knew that I'd work with animals, but I never thought my main study organisms would be lizards. S. jarrovi is the first lizard I ever got to study. I examined their microhabitat choice and the extent of their movement within their territories for my senior thesis in college. What I found was that these lizards preferred rocks, rock walls, and fallen logs, which matched the existing literature. I also found that they didn't have huge home ranges. In fact, I would routinely see the same lizard on the same perch at the same time every day of my surveys.

This tends to hold for most lizards that are sit-and-wait predators vs active foragers. This helps when herping because even if you scare one of these lizards into a hide, if you walk away and give them 20 or so minutes, they'll come back out and hang in the same spot.

You might be asking yourself, "Why did you even need to do that research?" or "Why do we care about this?" The big picture answer is that we need this information to inform wildlife management plans that conserve our species. However, on the non-practical side, it is fantastic to seek knowledge just for curiosity's sake! There are so many small natural wonders around us. I think we should all make time to explore these more in our daily lives. I bet it would bring a lot more joy than you'd think.

Just like if you #FoundThatLizard! Let me know in the comments if you spotted it!