Common Side-blotched Lizard (Uta stansburiana)

Created: November 17th, 2012 - 07:39 PM
Last Modified: November 17th, 2012 - 07:39 PM Entered by: RJ Adams
Record 129944

Country: United States		State: California	County: San Luis Obispo County	Time: 2012-11-10 11:23:00
Qty: 1	Age: Adult	Sex: --	Method: Visual encounter	Habitat: Rockpile in open grassland
Body Temperature: -----		Air Temperature: -----	Ground Temperature: -----	Humidity: -----
Sky Conditions: Clear		Moon Phase: -----	Elevation: 2159.00ft	Barometric Pressure: -----

Notes

This lone individual was found basking on a large rock along the Painted Rock Trail, Carrizo Plains NM.

Vouchers

Comments

Posted by Philip Clevinger on Mar 25, 2014 at 10:28 PM

Its my pleasure, RJ. I was doing a DB accounting for SLO County, so I had the opportunity to see a lot of great looking records. I understand your hesitation to add the subspecies as well. Just a few years ago, all Uta in California were U. s. stansburiana, so a lot of folks have records that reflect that. Updating records only to change them again in a couple years makes for quite a headache. Thank you for all your contributions to the Database!

Posted by RJ Adams on Mar 25, 2014 at 10:12 PM

Thank you for your kind words! I know according to CalHerp website that elegans is the subspecies in the Carrizo Plains, but I haven't found anything on differentiating the different Side-blotched subspecies. It feels like circular logic to me placing a subspecific name on a lizard if I can't ID to subspecies based entirely on geographic local so I have left it off for now.

I really appreciate you looking at my records and photos.

Posted by Philip Clevinger on Mar 23, 2014 at 06:49 PM

elegans is the Subspecies in SLO County. Nice voucher!