KNAU News Talk - Arizona Public Radio | By Scott Thybony
PublishedJune 28, 2024 at 10:02 AM MST
The world is stranger and more fascinating than it might appear at first. In a land where everything seems to sting, bite or prickle one creature stands out for its almost friendly demeanor. In his newest Canyon Commentary, author Scott Thybony reveals the secrets of the remarkable horned lizard, a reptile found throughout the West.
Old habits die hard, and sometimes we don’t even let them do that. I still call a horny toad a horny toad despite knowing better. It’s not a toad, and since it only mates once a year the name is doubly misleading. But it has a smooth way of rolling off the tongue unlike the official designation. The most wide-ranging species in the American West is called the greater short-horned lizard, bringing to mind something you might have to round up and drive to a loading pen.
A few weeks ago a friend and I were searching an escarpment in Petrified Forest National Park for some of the outstanding rock art it holds. After a couple of hours climbing up, over, and around boulders on a rough talus slope we were ready for some flat land. At that moment I spotted a petroglyph we had missed high above us. Tony Williams pulled out a monocular for a look. “I’m not sure,” he said, “but it looks like a horny toad.”
Anthony Williams
He has had a fascination with these creatures for as long as I’ve known him, so we couldn’t pass it up. After a steep trudge back up the slope we stood as happy as a couple of kids before the pecked image of a big-bellied lizard. The Puebloan people have depicted horny toads on cliff faces throughout the region and on their pottery. The images even appear in Archaic rock art thousands of years old. And no wonder.
The reptile looks antediluvian, something right out of a budget horror movie. The head bristles with horns, and it has a fringe of spines along each side with a spiky tail. But they are docile, almost amiable if it’s acceptable to attribute personality traits to a reptile. They survive on a diet of mostly harvester ants, having a natural immunity to the venomous sting. The horny toad will hunker down near an anthill and wait to ambush the next ant to march by. It suddenly darts a sticky tongue out and swallows it just as fast. They survive in environments ranging from the desert to surprisingly high in the mountains at elevations above 11,000 feet. Two states, Texas and Wyoming, have designated the horned lizard as the state reptile. Arizona prefers the rattlesnake.
To compensate for its placid disposition the horny toad has a bag of tricks to fool a predator. Its first line of defense is invisibility. The color and texture provide excellent camouflage, making them extremely difficult to spot unless they move. They can be mistaken for a rock or even a piece of lichen on a rock. The second line of defense is deterrence. It appears fierce and ready for combat, being as bristly as a thornapple. When threatened it runs in short, erratic bursts to confuse a pursuer. If overtaken it will inflate its body to double the normal size, making a predator think twice about trying to swallow it. And sometimes it rolls belly up and plays dead. But its most startling tactic is something I had trouble believing at first.
A knowledgeable friend told me they squirted blood from their eyes. During all of the times I had handled them I had never seen this response and put it in the same category as the legendary jackalope. Then one day when my son was a little guy he let a horny toad sit on the palm of his hand. When our dog came running up to join the fun the horny toad suddenly squirted a long stream of blood from the corner of its eye. The dog quickly backed off deterred by the foul smell of the blood.
Having witnessed it firsthand I was forced to admit a blood-squirting reptile does exist. Now I’m wondering about those jackalopes.
Scott Thybony is a Flagstaff-based writer. His Canyon Commentaries are produced by KNAU Arizona Public Radio.
