Range in California: Red
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Adult female, Inyo County |
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| Adult female, Inyo County |
Adult male in territorial display, Inyo County |
Adult, Inyo County |
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Adult male, southern Inyo County |
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Adult female, Inyo County |
Adult male, Granite Mountains, San Bernardino County. © Keith Condon |
Adult female, Inyo County |
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Adult female, Inyo County |
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Male from the Kingston Mountains, San Bernardino County. © Steve Bledsoe |
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Adult from the Coast Range near Coalinga, Kings County © Patrick Briggs |
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Female from the Kingston Mountains, San Bernardino County. © Steve Bledsoe |
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Adult female, Inyo County
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Adult, Inyo County |
Adult, Inyo County |
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Adult female, Inyo County |
Adult female, Inyo County |
Displaying adult male, Washington County, Utah |
Displaying adult male, Washington County, Utah |
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| Adult male, Washoe County, Nevada |
This large male (also seen to the left) spent the day laying around in the shade under the picnic table at my campsite, but when I set a noosed juvenile Long-nosed Leopard Lizard on the cement to get some photographs of it, he ran over and grabbed the little lizard, dragged it and the noose away, and shook the lizard back and forth trying to kill it (and probably eat it.) But the lizard was still attached to the noose so I was able to rescue it and release it. |
When there's no rock or fence or tree to bask on, these lizards will climb up to the top of a bush to warm up in the morning sun. |
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Adult female, Washoe County, Nevada |
Adult male, Washoe County, Nevada |
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| Juvenile, Washoe County, Nevada |
Adult female, Washoe County, Nevada |
Adult female, Washoe County, Nevada |
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Habitat |
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Habitat, Inyo County |
Habitat, Inyo County |
Habitat, Inyo County |
Habitat, Inyo County |
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Habitat, San Bernardino County |
Habitat, Inyo County |
Habitat, San Bernardino County |
Habitat, Panoche Hills, Coast Range,
San Benito County |
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| Habitat, Kingston Mountains, San Bernardino County. © Steve Bledsoe |
Habitat, Inyo County |
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Short Videos
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| Yellow-backed Spiny Lizards pose and do territorial push-up displays in Southwest Utah. |
A big Yellow-backed Spiny Lizard is shown after being noosed, with the noose still around its neck. As soon as I begin to release it, hoping to get some more video of it on its tree, it fools me and runs away along the ground. |
A big male in the Nevada desert. |
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| Description |
Size |
| Adult males grow up to 5.5 inches from snout to vent (SVL) (14 cm..) Females grow up to 4.4 inches SVL (1.12 cm). The tail is slighly longer than the SVL. |
| Appearance |
A robust, stout lizard with large pointed keeled scales and a black wedge on the sides of the neck. Thin dark lines extend from the rear of the eye and mouth towards the posterior. The tail detaches easily, but it will regenerate.
Coloration is brown or tan with indistinct dorsal markings. Markings may fade as the animal grows older. Juveniles lack the dark wedge markings on the neck and have dark and light spots on the back.
Males have enlarged postanal scales and femoral pores, a swollen tail base, and a bluish patch on the throat and on the sides of the belly with black on the edges. Males often have a dark purple to blackish band with light borders down the center of the back.
Females are pale in color underneath with faint or no blue markings. The head of a female may be orange or reddish in the breeding season.
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| Behavior & Natural History |
Diurnal. Active generally from April through October, taking shelter during periods of excessive heat and cold. A good climber, often seen on rocks, trees and walls, as well as on the ground. Shelters under rocks, logs and other surface objects, and in cracks, burrows, and woodrat nests. Very wary. Escapes by running away quickly into brush, rocks, or burrows.
Males stand tall, extend the throat to expose the blue coloring, and push the body up and down to demonstrate their presence and command of the territory. Short movie of push-up display.
A sit-and-wait predator, though sometimes they will actively forage. |
| Diet |
| Eats a variety of small invertebrates and their larvae including ants, beetles, grasshoppers, spiders, centipedes, and caterpillars, and occasionally small lizards, nestling birds, leaves, flowers and berries. |
| Reproduction |
| Adults are sexually mature at 2 - 3 years. Breeds in spring and early summer, generally May and June sometimes until August. Females lay a clutch of 3 - 19 eggs between May and August. Young are typically seen in August and September, sometimes October. Females may lay more than one clutch during favorable years. |
| Range |
In California, occurs mostly in the Mojave and Great Basin desert regions and along the western side of the Central Valley in the Coast Ranges. The species ranges farther north and east into Nevada and extreme southwest Utah and northwest Arizona and just east of the Colorado River.
(The range information used here is taken from Jones et al - Lizards of the American Southwest, 2009.) |
| Habitat |
| Inhabits desert flats, semiarid plains, low mountain slopes, riparian woods, including areas grown with, creosote bush, mesquite, yucca, Joshua trees, and grasses. Inhabits rock outcrops and rodent holes on the banks of dry stream beds in the Coast Range and Central Valley. |
| Taxonomic Notes |
Sceloporus magister taxonomy has been very confusing recently (as of May, 2009). As things stand, Sceloporus magister in California represents either one species, possibly with two subspecies, or two full species, the distribution of which does not follow the distribution of the long-accepted subspecies.
In 1996, Grismer & McGuire (1996 Herpetologica 52(3): 416-427) recommended that no subspecies of S. magister should be recognized.
1 In 2006, Schulte, Macey, and Papenfuss split S. magister into three species - S. magister, S. uniformis, and S. bimaculosus, with two subspecies of S. magister - S. m. magister, and S. m. cephaloflavus. However, their sample size was very small which makes it difficult to determine the ranges of these new species in California.
In 2008, the S.S.A.R., whose list this web site follows, adopted the 3 species taxonomy of Schulte et al in the sixth edition of their Scientific and Standard English Names of Amphibians and Reptiles of North America north of Mexico list.
The taxonomy used on this site now follows this re-organization:
S. m. uniformis - Yellow-backed Spiny Lizard and S. m. transversus - Barred Spiny Lizard, has been re-arranged into two species: S. magister - Desert Spiny Lizard, and S. uniformis - Yellow-backed Spiny Lizard.
(You can see a range map of the former species here.)
S. uniformis now contains the entire former S. m. transversus subspecies and part of the S. m. uniformis subspecies - those lizards from Coast Range and Central Valley regions and the Mojave Desert north into Nevada and the extreme southwest corner of Utah and the extreme northwestern corner of Arizona and two small areas near the Colorado River. The remaining former S. m. uniformis from the Sonoran desert in California east into Arizona and south into Baja California are now S. magister - Desert Spiny Lizard, the subspecies S. m. magister - Purple-backed Spiny Lizard. S. magister farther east in southern Utah, northern Arizona and the four corners area of Colorado and New Mexico are the subspecies S. m. cephaloflavus - Orange-headed Spiny Lizard. The subspecies S. m. bimaculosus - Twin-spotted Spiny Lizard has been elevated to full species - S. bimaculosus - Twin-spotted Spiny Lizard.
In 2007, Leache and Mulcahy concluded that "S. magister appears to represent a single geographically variable and widespread species." 2
In 2009, Collins & Taggart submitted the 2006 3 species proposal by Schulte, Macey, and Papenfuss to a lizard systematist group which disagreed, leaving them to continue to recognize one species - S. magister - Desert Spiny Lizard.
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| Conservation Issues (Conservation Status) |
| None. |
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Taxonomy |
| Family |
Phrynosomatidae |
Zebra-tailed, Earless, Fringe-toed, Spiny, Tree, Side-blotched, and Horned Lizards |
| Genus |
Sceloporus |
Spiny Lizards |
| Species |
uniformis |
Yellow-backed Spiny Lizard |
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Original Description |
Sceloporus uniformis - Phelan and Brattstrom, 1955 - Herpetologica, Vol. 11, p. 10
from Original Description Citations for the Reptiles and Amphibians of North America © Ellin Beltz
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Meaning of the Scientific Name |
Sceloporus - Greek -skelos leg and porus - pore or opening - refers to the femoral pores on hind legs
uniformis - Latin - uni - one and formis - shape - refers to the lack of pattern on the dorsum
from Scientific and Common Names of the Reptiles and Amphibians of North America - Explained © Ellin Beltz
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Alternate Names |
Sceloporus magister - Desert Spiny Lizard (no subspecies recognized)
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Related or Similar Neighboring California Lizards |
Sceloporus magister - Desert Spiny Lizard
Sceloporus occidentalis longipes - Great Basin Fence Lizard
Sceloporus graciosus graciosus - Northern Sagebrush Lizard
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More Information and References |
Natureserve Explorer
California Dept. of Fish and Game
Stebbins, Robert C. A Field Guide to Western Reptiles and Amphibians. 3rd Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2003.
Behler, John L., and F. Wayne King. The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Reptiles and Amphibians. Alfred A. Knopf, 1992.
Powell, Robert., Joseph T. Collins, and Errol D. Hooper Jr. A Key to Amphibians and Reptiles of the Continental United States and Canada. The University Press of Kansas, 1998.
Bartlett, R. D. & Patricia P. Bartlett. Guide and Reference to the Turtles and Lizards of Western North America (North of Mexico) and Hawaii. University Press of Florida, 2009.
Jones, Lawrence, Rob Lovich, editors. Lizards of the American Southwest: A Photographic Field Guide. Rio Nuevo Publishers, 2009.
Smith, Hobart M. Handbook of Lizards, Lizards of the United States and of Canada. Cornell University Press, 1946.
Macey, J. Robert and Theodore Papenfuss."Herpetology." The Natural History of the White-Inyo Range Eastern California. Ed. Clarence Hall. University of California Press, 1991.
1 A genetic perspective on the geographic association of taxa among arid North American lizards of the Sceloporus magister complex (Squamata: Iguanidae: Phrynosomatinae)
James A. Schulte II, J. Robert Macey & Theodore J. Papenfuss 2006.
Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 39: 873-880
2 Phylogeny, divergence times and species limits of spiny lizards (Sceloporus magister species group) in western North American deserts and Baja California
ADAM D. LEACHE and DANIEL G. MULCAHY
Molecular Ecology (2007) doi: 10.1111/j.1365-294X.2007.03556.x
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The following status listings come from the Special Animals List which is published several times each year by the California Department of Fish and Game.
This animal is not included on the Special Animals List, which indicates that there are no significant conservation concerns for it in California.
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Organization
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Status Listing
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| U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) |
None |
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| California Endangered Species Act (CESA) |
None |
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| California Department of Fish and Game |
None |
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| Bureau of Land Management |
None |
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| USDA Forest Service |
None |
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| Natureserve Global Conservation Status Ranks |
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World Conservation Union - IUCN Red List
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