Regal horned lizard facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Regal horned lizard |
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| Conservation status | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Genus: |
Phrynosoma
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| Species: |
solare
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The regal horned lizard (Phrynosoma solare) is a special type of horned lizard. You can find it in Mexico and the Southwestern United States.
Contents
Description
The regal horned lizard is a small, flat lizard. It's about the size of a grown-up's hand. Even though it has spikes all over its body, its main defense is quite surprising! It can squirt blood from its eyes.
Here are some cool facts about them:
- They grow to be about 3 to 4 inches long from nose to tail. That's about 117 millimeters!
- Their skin can be pale gray, yellow-brown, or reddish. They often have dark spots on their back and sides.
- They have four legs, and each leg has four toes with claws.
- They are slow runners. Instead of running away, they use their amazing camouflage to hide from predators.
Where They Live (Distribution)
You can find these lizards in southeastern Arizona. They also live where the central mountains meet the southern desert.
Their Home (Habitat)
This horned lizard likes flat or gently sloped areas. These places have open desert plants like mesquite trees, creosote bushes, and tall saguaro cacti. They love hot and dry weather. Sometimes, the ground where they live is covered in limestone dust. They prefer the climate in the Sonoran Desert Mountains. But you can also find them in Texas, southern California, Arizona, and New Mexico.
What They Eat (Diet)
Regal horned lizards mostly eat harvester ants. They can eat a huge amount, like twenty-five hundred ants in just one meal! They eat slowly because they spend a lot of time in the desert's intense heat. They also enjoy eating flies, spiders, and other kinds of insects.
Behavior
These lizards are active all year long. But in winter, they usually only come out on warm days. They might even hibernate, or go into a deep sleep, from late September through October.
When they want to warm up, they bask in the sun. They often poke only their head out of the sand. Blood inside their head gets warm. When it's hot enough, they open a special valve in their neck. This lets the warm blood move around their whole body.
To stay safe from cold, they dig holes in the ground. When they feel threatened or are caught, they squirt blood from their eye. This blood might taste bad to predators. If hiding or looking scary doesn't work, they squirt blood. They aim for the predator's mouth and eyes. This stream of blood can shoot up to 4 feet away! They can do this several times. The blood comes out through tiny holes in their lower eyelids. Other ways they defend themselves include gulping air and poking with their horns.
Reproduction and Life Cycle
Regal horned lizards start mating in late April. Mating is most common in June and stops in July. Egg laying begins a few weeks later, usually in late July and early August. A female lizard lays about 10 to 30 eggs, with 15 being the average.
The eggs are laid in the sand and stay there for several weeks. The eggshells are white and flexible. They are about half an inch across. When the baby lizards hatch, they get no help from their parents. They immediately bury themselves in the sand. From then on, they are on their own to find and hunt for food. To attract a mate, male lizards do special moves. These include bobbing their heads, doing "push-ups," and nodding.
See also
In Spanish: Lagarto cornudo real para niños
