Rock horned lizard
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| Rock horned lizard | ||||||||||||||
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| Phrynosoma ditmarsi Stejneger, 1906 |
The Rock horned lizard, or Ditmar's horned lizard, is a phrynosoma found in Sonora in northern Mexico, south of the Arizona border. Bearing the shortest horns of all the horned lizards, it lives in thorn-scrub and deciduous Sinaloan woodlands. The Rock horned lizard was "lost" to science for about 65 years. It has a unique habitat preference and limited distribution. It also has a very imprecise holotype locality record which made it difficult to locate. An extraordinary effort by Vincent Roth based on a cross-correlational analysis of gut contents from only three specimens led to its rediscovery.
Its epithet Ditmarsi refers to Raymond Ditmars, an early curator of reptiles of the Bronx Zoo.
[edit] Diagnostic Features
- •Occipital and temporal horns reduced to flaring expansions
- •Deep and narrow occipital notch
- •High post-orbital ridge
- •Large vertical expansion of the mandibles
- •Bare tympanum in the anterior neck fold posterior to a vertical row of four spines
- •One row of lateral abdominal fringe scales surrounded by prominent scales
