REPTILIA: SQUAMATA: IGUANIDAE: Crotaphytus

Crotaphytus bicinctores

Black collared lizard / western collared lizard

Photos & text by Dr. Robert G. Sprackland.

Range: Widely distributed from southwestern Idaho south to northern Baja, Mexico, and east into Arizona.

Diagnosis: A large-headed lizard with granular scales, two thick, velvet-black collars around the neck (the anterior broken at the nape), a gray-green dorsum with thin rusty crossbands. There is a pale gray dorsal line from the hips along the length of the tail.

Description: Head very large, sub-triangular, and much wider at the base than the neck. Body about twice as long as head, slightly compressed. Hind legs much longer than forelimbs; adpressed hind limb extends beyond tip of snout. Tail longer than SVL, very slightly compressed, and lacking autotomy.

Head gray-brown with dark brown leopard spots, mainly on the temples. Neck marked with two deep black collars, the anterior incomplete at the nape. The skin between the collars is white. Body grayish green with 6-7 rusty crossbands. Dorsum with numerous small white spots. Belly cream, males with large black inguinal markings. Males also have bright blue markings on the throat. Wrists and digits yellowish.

Natural History: Western collared lizards live along the sides of rocky arroyos and canyons in arid areas. These lizards are almost never seen in open or flat country. They bask on rocks that offer a wide view of the area, and retreat under the rocks when they become too warm. Collared lizards are active predators that consume anything that moves that they can overpower, from insects to other lizards.

Collared lizards are nimble rock-hopping lizards, but can also traverse wide open areas bipedally. Unlike many other iguanids, collared lizards rarely loose their tails and cannot grow a replacement.  

Skeleton of a black collared lizard.

Reproduction: Egg layers.

Taxonomy & Relationships: This species was long classified as Crotaphytus collaris baileyi.

Variation:  

Additional Comments:

Type Specimen:

Literature: Click on book to order a copy

Conant, Roger and Joseph Collins. 1985. A field guide to eastern reptiles and amphibians. Houghton Mifflin Co. ISBN: 0-395-90452-8.

Fitch, Henry. 1956. An ecological study of the collared lizard. University of Kansas Publications 6(3): 213-274.

Hutchinson, Delbert, Simon Malcomber and L.S. Pletscher. 1999. A multidisciplinary investigation  of the applicability of the Pleistocene herpetofaunal stability model to collared lizards. Herpetological Monographs 13: 51-141.

McGuire, Jimmy. 1996. Phylogenetic systematics of Crotaphytid lizards (Reptilia: Iguania: Crotaphytidae). Bulletin of Carnegie Museum of Natural History, number 32. ISBN: 0145-9058.

Smith, Hobart. 1946. Handbook of Lizards: Lizards of the United States and of Canada. Comstock Publishing. ISBN: 0-8014-8236-4.

Sprackland, Robert. 1993. Husbandry and breeding of collared lizards. The Vivarium : 23-26.

Sprackland, Robert. 1990. Collared lizards. Tropical Fish Hobbyist November: 104-11.