A Narrow Escape: Saving a Flat-Tailed Horned Lizard

By Donna Roy

I found myself on the highway staring down an 18-wheeler semi-trailer truck barreling towards me. How did I end up here?

I have to rewind to a month earlier. My friend Joe, an environmental scientist, had been looking for help with flat-tailed horned lizard surveys. Their range is small, and they are a threatened species. For the survey, Arun, my husband, and I would wake up insanely early to drive over two hours to reach the desert by sunrise. Then, we would join Joe and others on the survey to drive to a randomly chosen GPS point in the desert.

Sleepy and missing my morning coffee, I would walk the 200-meter by 200-meter plot, trying to spot these lizards. They rely on cryptic coloration to blend into the desert sand. Looking for them was like looking for a tiny leopard on a leopard skin rug. And they don’t move. They need very little food to sustain them, an advantage of being a poikilotherm, and their scat is always full of shiny ant parts. I also had to keep an eye out for other ectotherms, especially the sidewinders that lie coiled half buried under sand.

After a month of doing this, I got good at finding these lizards. They are so cute to look at. This made them appealing to the pet trade, which is one of the threats they face, though habitat loss has been the gravest for them. Arun was getting so good he could spot them from the Jeep as we drove through the desert! 

And that’s precisely what happened on Highway 78 this fateful day. He saw a flat-tailed horned lizard in the middle of the highway. A lizard on a road where vehicles whiz by at 60+ miles per hour. I was worried about it. No cars were behind us, so when Arun pulled to the side of the highway, I jumped out. I ran to the lizard, and it was alive, just sitting there unmoving, hoping its cryptic camouflage would protect it. I picked it up, grateful that it was alive. The lizard hissed faintly. And then I heard Arun shouting. I looked up to see the truck barreling towards me. For a moment I was rooted to the spot. The lizard was cradled in my palm. Then I ran and jumped off the highway just as the truck thundered past.

I left the lizard in the wash. As I stepped back, I found it hard to pick it out. But I could because my eyes had learned how to recognize it. I guess that’s what we naturalists do: learn to see the life around us so we don’t pass by ignorantly and uncaringly. And there is so much to see, appreciate, and care for. I feel grateful to be able to spend time out in open spaces and want to share the joy with others.