Coast Horned Lizard

About the Coast Horned Lizard

The coast horned lizard (Phrynosoma coronatum) is a species of phrynosomatid lizard endemic to Baja California Sur in Mexico. As a defense the lizard can shoot high pressure streams of blood out of its eyes if threatened.

Phrynosoma coronatum was previously considered to be a widely divergent species with over six subspecies ranging from Baja California north to California's Sacramento Valley. In 1997 Bayard H. Brattstrom of California State University, Fullerton, Department of Biology stated that there are no subspecies of the coast horned lizard. Studying specimens from the San Diego Natural History Museum, he could not match a given lizard to a particular claimed subspecies—for example, Phrynosoma coronatum blainvillii or Phrynosoma coronatum frontale—based on characteristics the subspecies were said to have, such as size of frontal scales. Instead, the classification of the assumed subspecies seemed to be based on the site at which it was collected. Thus, Brattstrom concluded that the species has much variation but no valid subspecies.

However, a 2009 study by Adam D. Leaché et al. found sufficient genetic divergence (based on mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA) between... Wikipedia →