Reptile & Amphibian Forums

These iggies were a beautiful bunch. The best wild ones I've personally seen. Among them and in the rocks were utas, white back/tail chuckies, vestigums, zebra tails, granites, leopard lizards and even some bandies.It was a "cool" sight on a very hot day!

They are beautiful! Mine get that shiny white to them under the basking spot, but mine aren't quite as hefty.

My wc are very friendly and laid back, except for one. Can you approach them at all or get fairly close to them in the wild?

Sometimes I'm able to get within a feet or so if approached very slowly. They'll run into a thick creosote bush if startled, and remain there if left alone. I've noticed the di's from the boonies tend to be more skittish than the ones that live within a small town which are exposed to people.

That day, I noosed about five big di's, and none were females. I saw some what looked like gravid females and many smaller ones bolting into burrows the second we were spotted.
I believe the youngins and females are uneasy, because of their tender age and the state the females are in.

I remember back in the late 80s going to Thousand Palms, CA and finding a DI underneath every third creosote bush in an area near one of the major roads. I had read a research report that said DIs were particularly abundant there. I was able to get within a foot of each lizard. I caught 6 in about 30 minutes, and kept the best 3, which I had for a number of years. Unfortunately, the area was scheduled to be bulldozed to build a shopping center. I got really mad thinking about all those DIs that basically were going to be killed to build a MacDonalds and Home Depot!

It turned out I had 2.1 rather than the 1.2 I thought I had kept, and after a couple of years the 2 males had a huge brawl in which one of the males had his feet on the right side bitten off...I was really shocked because they had never shown any aggression toward one another in the previous 2 years.

Those are awesome DIs!

Bart

Thanks for sharing. Those are the best iggy photos that I have seen so far.

Though I would add this one I took last week. Turned out pretty good from the Borrego area.

What a gorgeous lizard! It looks like it is grinning!