Phrynosoma solare
- Photo(s): Ned Harris, www.flickr.com/photos/ned_harris
This lizard sometimes squirts foul tasting blood from its eyes when threatened or captured.
Photo by Ned Harris
Regal Horned Lizards are common in Sabino Canyon. They are medium sized lizards up to 4.6 inches long, quite flat in appearance, broad bodied and short tailed. They are tan overall but darker along the sides. They have a prominent crown of flattened horn-like scales along the sides and back of the head, enlarged pointed scales scattered across the back and a single row of small scales along the lower edge of the body.
Regal Horned Lizards are active during the day and are usually seen in Sabino Canyon between March and October. Hatchlings are usually first seen in September.
They feed primarily on ants, which they capture with their sticky tongues. Predators include other lizards, snakes, birds of prey and carnivorous mammals. They produce a neat, cylindrical dropping more than one inch long, typically composed entirely of the hard parts of a single species of ant. The author has seen several of these large distinctive pellets in the canyon.
This lizard sometimes squirts foul tasting blood from its eyes when threatened or captured.
In July or August the female will burrow in loose soil and then lay a clutch of up to 33 eggs in a chamber at the end of the tunnel. Incubation lasts from 5 to 9 weeks. This contrasts with their cousins, the Short-horned Lizards that we see on Mt. Lemmon, which give birth to live young.
This photograph was taken in September 2012 on the Bear Canyon #29 trail.