Granite spiny
lizards
Images copyright by Mark A. Chappell
Granite spiny lizards (Sceloporus orcutii) are large,
beautiful lizards native to a small piece of southern California and adjacent
Mexico. As their name implies, they are frequently found basking on large
granite boulders on rocky hilsides in arid scrubland. The speices is strongly
sexually dimorphic, and males (like the one above, in the midst of a territorial
display) are larger and much more colorful than females,
as can be seen in the picture below at left, and in the photo of a mating pair (bottom, right). I took these pictures
in the Box Springs Mountains near Riverside, CA, using a big telephoto lens
to avoid alarming the animals.
Close-up photos of belly and back scales appear on another page.
