Well, a few days ago to my surprise I found 3 Coastal Horned Lizards at my local park up the street from my house. Since I have never seen one there in the 8 years that I've been going there I found it quite remarkable and brought one home with my to take pictures and then to be released the next day. Well while it was in my possesion it defecated and to my surprise the feces contained no noticable ant exoskeletons an when i looked i still coulldn't find any (though i did find a field cricket leg). Well i decided to see if the little guy would eat crickets and he did, infact the 2 1/2 inch long lizard at a dozen small field crickets quite eagerly. The following day when i released him I spent 4 hours looking in the area around where I caught him and to my surprise I could find no harvester ant colonies only 6 of what I think were peruvian ant nests or some other similair species. I guess theyve adapted to a diet without ants? Any other ideas?
Just found it intereesting,
Devlin
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Devlin Gandy
I keep many rare and unusual lizards
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Interesting note on California Horned Lizards in Northern LA county
Replies (4)
Hello Devlin.
Your findings do not surprise me. CHLs just coming out of hibernation will eat a lot of different items not usual to their normal diet. In late summer, CHLs will feed on small beetles more than ants.
Is this park an isolated park? Is is completely surrounded by housing/commercial/industrial development? What is the acerage of the park? What percent is coastal sage scrub/ chapparral?
The foraging behavior of CHLs is altered in disturbed habitats as compared to undisturbed habitats. The home ranges are also different.
A lot more information needs to be looked at before saying that this is an adaptation to a non-ant diet.
Lester G. Milroy III
park is around 120 acres that is mostly steep hills
surrounded by residentials and main roads
around 40% sage scrub that covers the hillsides, surprisingly never even seen horned lizards in the scub but have in the grass below the scrub, though i can assume that is because they have a greater visibility in the scrub areas than in the grass so they have more time to hide.
Devlin
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Devlin Gandy
I keep many rare and unusual lizards
im sorry to say, but the pictures of the lizard in the post is not a coastal horned lizard. and horny toads eat lots of diffrent things, i sometimes feed mine a few crickets and maybe a meal worm or 2 once a month just to mix things up. here is my CHL...
np
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Devlin Gandy
I keep many rare and unusual lizards
