Crevice Spiny Lizard

About the Crevice Spiny Lizard

The Crevice Spiny Lizard is a big, rough-scaled rock lizard of the Texas hill and canyon country - broad-headed and heavy-bodied, gray to greenish with a bold black collar edged in white and a banded tail. Mature males flash brilliant blue-green throat and belly patches when they do push-up displays on a sunlit ledge.

As the name promises, this lizard never strays far from a crack in the rock. It suns on limestone outcrops and canyon walls, wedging itself deep into crevices at the first hint of danger, where its keeled, spiny scales make it nearly impossible for a predator to extract. Unlike most Texas lizards it bears live young rather than laying eggs.

In Texas the Crevice Spiny Lizard is a resident of the Edwards Plateau canyons west through the Trans-Pecos, active from spring through fall and quick to vanish - photographing one is usually a matter of a slow, patient approach.