Some cool field herping finds...

A good friend of mine is doing his graduate school research up in a little town near Amarillo, TX. He sent this to me and I thought some of you guys might be able to appreciate it. The following is some of the details from the email he sent me, as he has it explained pretty well.

"Some of you might have heard from me that a group of students and my adviser found some roundtail horned lizards (Phrynosoma modestum) last week on a place called the Crossbar Ranch where we have on-going research. The Crossbar is the only Bureau of Land Management-owned land in Texas. That was the first time in several years that this species has been seen anywhere near here (that we know of). There are specimens of this species at the university taken from the canyon, but they are quite old.....I finally made it out there today with my adviser and another friend. We went to the place where they had found 3 last Saturday, but our expectations weren't very high as it was a little too cool and overcast for reptiles today. Despite the bad weather, we managed to find one lone, cold female roundtail horned lizard.....Notice how their color and behavior help them to blend in with the rocks around them. Because of this, roundtails are sometimes called "pebble fauna," as they appear to be moving rocks. If you're curious, there are 13 species of "horned lizards," all in the genus Phrynosoma. Hope you enjoy the pictures."

He has found some of the most interesting critters up there. You know it has to be fun when your advisor says the main requirement for your research is a pair of thigh-high snake(bite)-proof boots... :dancer:

LOL...I was looking at that first picture going 'I don't see anything.....'. Took me a few moments to see it Those sure are neat looking ones! Its amazing how well they blend in, eh? Its almost as if there was a grand design, with a chief designer all plotting out these unique creations....hmm I might be on to something!!

That is amazing, it is like a cross between and lizard and a toad, how wonderful,

They're so cute! It took me a minute to see it in the first picture.

On a side (yet somewhat related) note...

The same guy is the one who took the picture of my avatar. That is baby Texas Horned Lizard, and that is a guy's size Aggie Ring. They used to be all over Texas, but are now so endangered, it is even illegal to pick up a dead one. He was tracking adults and putting little radiotelemetry "back-packs" on them. Pretty cool stuff.

Those little guys provided my introduction to reptiles.

When I was a kid horned lizards were everywhere in the panhandle of Texas, but I haven't seen one in quite a while. It is a real shame.

I remember catching boxes full of them and dropping them near red ant mounds. They would eat ants until they looked like they would burst.

Thanks for the post and the walk down memory lane.

Used to be!!!!

When I was a kid in Oklahoma, they( not those but something similar) used to be everywhere too. The little ones were the coolest. We always would catch turn them over scratch their bellies then turn them loose. My dad used to say the old wise tale was if you killed one, your cows milk would be bloody... Well, we did not have a milk cow, just beef cattle and horses. But we were always nature lovers and always let everything survive. We still own the land that we ran on years ago, but I have not seen any "horny toads" in years. But I do not get there much. Hopefully they are still around because the land has not changed and has been in my family since the OKlahoma land run...