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Great Horned lizard

Allison

Allison

Well-known member
Yes! I only found one hatchling this year, so this is my first adult!
The pictures don't show it well, but the turquoise on this fellow was outstanding!

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This was the baby-
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Thanks for looking!
 
Sweet pics. I had one of those when I was a kid, but I think thy're protected now. I remember hearing that they've been know to squirt blood from their eyes or is this just fiction?
 
Thanks! I have heard that it is total BS, I have heard that it is completely true, and I have heard that only some types do it..:shrugs:
 
At least some species squirt blood from their eyes - it's a natural defense to predation. Look it up if you want more details, but it'll cause a dog to froth up and drop them fast. Apparently, it contains something that gives it a horrible taste. I did accidentally get popped by a drop in my eye once, and it irritated my eye more than you'd expect. That might have been partly psychosomatic, though! It isn't like a stream of blood - it is a spray of blood that CAN be rather moderate in quantity sometimes.

Many species ARE now protected. For example, if tyou'd have taken similar images of the Texas horned lizard in Texas, you'd be getting a visit from a warden.......lol.
KJ
 
haha-- *throws hands up!* Those aren't my hands!!* :grin01:

Fortunately they are pretty common around Az, and yet they are still my absolute favorite lizard.
 
I love "Horny Toads!" (as we call them in New Mexico, lol) I used to catch a lot of these in middle school. Awesome pets and some unique personalities. Of course, I never kept them long, a month at the most, before releasing them far away from the town. I was able to hand feed every one of them. :) One time, my neighbor found a really fat one that looked sick and brought it home to me. It died literally seconds before I was able to see it but I noticed that the stomach was moving. Extremely curious, I carefully slit the stomach and out popped a lot of tiny squirming babies. I raised them 'til they got bigger and then let them out in the foothills of the mountains 2 miles behind our house. I made sure they were able to eat on their own rather than always hand feeding them as I wanted to ensure their survival in the wild. "Horny Toads" are definitely one of my favorite lizards.
 
P.S. I also think it's cool that if some predator does attempt to swallow them, they puff up and get stuck in the throat, sometimes killing the predator by restricting their ability to breath or eat/drink. They'll also turn their head from side to side, trying to cut up the inside of the throat with the horns on the back of their head. Very brave and tough critters.
 
I see them for sale at shows all the time, but I wonder if they are A. wild caught and full of parasites and B. difficult to keep. I had a WC once that didn't make it, and I thought my husbandry was acceptible, but that was long before the days of the Internet and all the caresheets and everything. So I've always thought of them as difficult; I don't know how true that is.
 
Can you get them to eat anything other than ants? I'd be interested in having a CB horned lizard someday if they can be convinced to eat something besides ants.
 
Crickets are a good food source, especially since you can get them in many sizes. Larger lizards can eat grasshoppers as well. Possibly Super Worms or something similar, but I've never tried these. I mainly fed mine what I could catch and that matched what the books in the library said their natural food sources were. (the internet wasn't that available back then and it was bad enough waiting 15 minutes for your e-mail to load on a 14.4 Kbps modem, let alone a text heavy page that might even have a few pics... :uhoh: )
 
Very interesting, Nanci, and it seems like a good site to support and do business with. I used to frequently cull from anthills in a field behind my house for "Horny Toad" food. It was quick and easy, especially when I was too lazy or busy to go hunting for crickets and grasshoppers. I believe the majority of ants I collected were indeed the red harvester ones sold on that site. The other type of ants I was able to find were bigger and black but were also gobbled up pretty quickly.
 
Thanks, Nanci. I thought ants were obligatory for those lizards. 100 ants a day is a lot of ants unless you live in the desert and know of several mature colonies to raid.
 
I wonder if you had a lot of property with unlimited ants, if you could just take your lizard out to graze. I did that with my tortoises instead of feeding them for the year they lived in the house before I built their enclosure. I wonder if they can eat any species of ant.
 
Thank you everyone for your interest! I have always been totally fascinated by their personalities and appearance but have never taken the extra step into research in captivity. I might just have to one of these days...
 
Not to make anyone angry but the horned lizards primary food is ants any other will eventually lead to poor health or death the Texas horned lizards can supplement these with termites, beetles, and grasshoppers.
The Texas horned lizard, along with at least three other species, also has the ability to squirt an aimed stream of blood from the corners of the eyes for a distance of up to 5 feet. This not only confuses would-be predators, the blood is mixed with a chemical that is foul-tasting to canidae predators such as wolves, coyotes, and domestic dogs.

Now the bad news

Texas: The Texas horned lizard is now a protected species and it is illegal to take, possess, transport or sell them without a special permit.

Arizona: It is against Arizona State law to harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect this animal or to attempt to engage in any such conduct.

California: California Department of Fish and Game gives them full protection from collecting.

Times have changed since we were kids unless they are from Texas and you have a permit we have to leave them be

A good reference place is Horned Lizard Conservation Society www.hornedlizards.org
 
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