Along with the missing turtles, I have seen very few lizards this year.
When I was doing an estate sale in Harleton, I regularly saw a 5 Lined Skink (Plestiodon fasciatus) and a 6 Lined Racerunner Whiptail lizard (Aspidoscelis sexlineata). At the RV park I have seen one Anolis lizard (Anolis carolinensis) and a couple of times I have seen 5 Lined Skinks - including one on my site when I was moving big rocks to make an outdoor fire ring.
On my several trips across the highway where I walk in the woods, I have seen 2 Anolis lizards. Two.
Today, as I walked from the office to my RV, I saw a small Texas Spiny Lizard (Sceloporus olivaceous).
So in six months of suitable weather, in all my time outdoors (which is considerable), I have seen 8 lizards of 4 different species. I don't understand that. I used to spend a few minutes in the woods and would see more than that.
Where are the lizards?
I did a quick Google search and found nothing. Unlike with turtles which had lots of hits. But I do know the difference is extreme.
From the time I was a kid through my years as a biologist, I could always find dozens of lizards anywhere I went in Texas. In west Texas there were Whiptails (Cnemidophorus then - Aspidoscelis now) everywhere; Uta were common in the right areas; lots of Urosaurus; and, of course, the long missing Horned Lizards (Phrynosoma cornutum). In east Texas there were large numbers of Sceloporus, Aspidoscelis, Phrynosoma and Anolis lizards. By large numbers, I mean I could see a dozen or more in a 15 minute walk.
I do know what happened to the Texas Horned Lizards. Their food source was wiped out and they went away - well, not completely, but they are missing in most areas now and rare in the few places they are still found. When I was a kid, they were everywhere you looked, as were their food source, Red Harvester Ants (Pogomyramex). A combination of pesticides and then competition from fire ants have devastated the Red Harvester Ant populations. Since they made up at least 65% of Horned Lizards diet, their populations were devastated, too.
But that doesn't explain what happened to the Spiny Lizards, the Anolis, and all the other formerly common species.
I am going to have to do some research and see what I can find.
Michael is a former biologist and Texas Master Naturalist. Originally from Newsome, Texas (Between Pittsburg and Winnsboro), educated in Dallas & Garland schools, then off to the University of Texas system where he received a degree in biology and worked as a biologist with the University of Texas system. After many years away from nature and biology, he relocated to the banks of Lake O' the Pines where he has been rediscovering the joys of nature. He is somewhat surprised that he has become a birder. Most of his interest in nature was centered around reptiles. Perhaps just like birds evolved from reptiles starting in the late Jurassic, he has begun his own evolution. During his formal education, his interests in biology/nature grew to include community ecology and population studies, all with a binding of evolutionary processes. He liked birds, but they were secondary at best. All at once he finds them fascinating.
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