Friday, September 9, 2011

Sceloporus magister; Reptile native to Sonoran Desert in the US.

My cats helped me discover this beautiful small family of Desert Spiny Lizard. Every morning, my cats would just stare outside into the patio as if there was something weird going on. First, I thought they just look at birds, but then this one day I decided to peek through the mirror too. And to my surprise, I saw a beautifully colored lizard standing right in front of an old refrigerator in my patio, bravely staring at my face. I sat down right there to observe it for a while. After some time I saw another one come out. This one was smaller and not vibrantly colored. I assumed it was a female lizard. I grabbed my camera and started clicking through the mirror. Later on, I looked their kind up on the internet. I found two species of lizard that matched the exact description of the ones I was looking at. Yellow-backed spiny lizard and Desert spiny lizard. I spent quite some time deciding which one this exactly is. Researched a bit more and concluded that this is the Desert Spiny lizard. A few days back I found two juvenile lizards running around the patio trying to look for food maybe? They were super active and were being guarded by their mother, while they looked for food. The male lizard has not come out since a few days or maybe it just left...


Male Sceloporus magister


Female Sceloporus magister