Great Basin Fence Lizard

Description:

This lizard is cold and has little energy to move. It laid on its back with little movement. "A fairly small lizard with keeled and pointed dorsal scales of equal size on the back, sides, and belly. Scales on the backs of the thighs are mostly keeled, and abruptly smaller, and the rear of the limbs is yellow or orange. The sides of the belly are blue. Color is brown, gray, or black with narrow irregular crossbars. Often the color is completely black. Sometimes light markings on the sides of the backs form stripes or irregular lines, and sometimes dark blotching may form irregular bands. The belly is gray to black. Males have blue markings on the sides of the belly edged in black, a single large blue patch on the throat, enlarged postanals, and a swollen tail base. Some scales on the back become blue or greenish when a lizard is in the light phase. Females have faint or absent blue markings on the belly, no blue or green color on the upper surfaces, and dark bars or crescents on the back." - California Herps

Habitat:

One of my teen nature enthusiasts spotted this lizard in the shade, early one morning. She picked it up, let me take pics then placed it in the shade to warm up and run away. "This subspecies is found in coastal and montane southern California north to Santa Barbara County and east along the mountains into the Owens Valley and Eastern Sierra Nevada region and Great Basin Desert of eastern California, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Idaho. It is not found in the southern California deserts except in isolated groups at higher elevations in the Ord, Providence, and New York mountains, the Mid-hills region, and the Kingston Range. I have received a report that they also occur in the Granite Mountains. The species Sceloporus occidentalis ranges from northern Baja California north to Washington and east to Idaho, Nevada and Utah." - California Herps