YIKES, LIZARDS IN MY YARD!

In recent months, I have published numerous blog posts concerning a diverse assortment of animals and plants that either live in, or visit, my yard. This current blog post focuses on a lizard species that I see more and more, as the weather warms up. It is the “Common side-blotched lizard,” a lizard found throughout southern California (including the deserts). The breeding season of this lizard is from April to June. They are fast-moving reptiles, unless they are sunning themselves on flat  surfaces. These animals are usually about 5 to 7 inches long, and they can vary in their markings and coloration (e.g., from being spotted, striped, blotched, or solid brown to gray brown). To add to the difficulty in trying to identify them, there are also male and female morphological variants (morphs).

Their classification is the following (from Wikipedia).
 

Kingdom Animalia

Phylum Chordata

Class Reptilia

Order Squamata

Suborder Iguania

Family Phrynosomatidae

Genus Uta

Species stansburiana {there can be several variants)

Figure 1: Lizard (about 7 inches long) "catching some rays." 

Figure 2. Another lizard (about 5 inches in length); this one shows a white band at the bottom of its body (the band is helpful in identifying the species).

For more details, in addition to Wikipedia, see the following URL, see:

https://www.californiaherps.com/identification/lizards/common/lizards.html