North American Eastern Fence Lizard: Striped Green-Brown-Rusty Body

Summary: Grassy, woody North American eastern fence lizard habitats get brown-green-rusty bodies with movable eyelids, outer ear openings and striped backs.

plateau lizard (Sceloperus undulatus tristichus) consuming a juvenile desert spiny lizard (Sceloporus magister): Christopher Gezon/Zion National Park (ZionNPS), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

North American eastern fence lizards appear from southern New York westward through southern Missouri and eastern Kansas and southward from northern Florida through eastern Texas and into all of the states in-between.

Eastern fence lizards bear subspecies names as southern prairie, White Sands prairie, northern plateau, red-lipped prairie, northern prairie, northern fence, southern plateau and southern fence lizards. The species name Sceloporus undulatus (leg holes [and] wavy [crossbands]) channels the subspecies' scientific names Sceloporus undulatus consobrinus, cowlesi, elongatus, erythrocheilus, garmani, hyacinthinus, tristichus and undulatus. Descriptions in 1801 by Louis Augustin Guillaume Bosc (Jan. 29, 1759-July 10, 1828) and François Marie Daudin (Aug. 29, 1776-Nov. 30, 1803) still determine scientific designations.

Eastern fence lizard life cycles expect burrow-, log-, rock-, stump-edged eastern mixed, open pine-oak forests and woodlands, midwestern grasslands, suburban and urban woodlots and western canyonlands.

April through August fill eastern fence lizard life cycles with breeding season months in northern and southern plains and plateaus and northern, southern and western prairies.

Northerners get dark-, wavy-, cross-barred backs with belly and throat patches black-bordered on the plains and blue on plateaus and light-striped backs and sides on prairies. Southerners have cross-barred backs with bellies and throats blue-patched on plains and light-striped backs and sides with throat patches blue on plateaus and fused on prairies. The back pattern is absent or indistinct in red-lipped and White Sands subspecies, with the former blue throat-patched, yellow-chinned westerner including orange lips during mating seasons.

Agro-industrialists and black racers, blue racers, copperheads, cottonmouths, eastern ratsnakes, mole kingsnakes, prairie kingsnakes and red imported fire ants jeopardize North American eastern fence lizard habitats.

Eastern fence lizards know behavior-signaling, color-changing, distance vision-based communication systems and territorial defenses of chest-inflating, head-bobbing, push-ups and sharp-toothed strong jaws clamping long tongues and tail-cutting.

Yearling and older females respectively lay one clutch and two to four clutches of 3 to 13 cream-colored eggs for incubated hatching between June and September. Calcium carbonate-shelled eggs mount oxygen-permeable chlorion coverings around gas-exchanging, waste-removing allantois membranes around yolk sacs around liquid-membraned amniotic sacs around embryos maturing on food-filled blood vessels. Ambushed, arboreal, crawling, day-active, flying, stalked, terrestrial ants, beetles, centipedes, cockroaches, crickets, flies, gnats, grasshoppers, millipedes, mosquitoes, moths, slugs, snails, spiders, termites and weevils nourish adults.

North American eastern fence lizard habitats offer season-coldest temperatures, north to southward, from minus 15 to 30 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 26.11 to minus 1.11 degrees Celsius).

Two- to 2.6-inch (50.8- to 66.04-millimeter), 0.01-ounce (0.27-gram) hatchlings prefer daytime, humid temperatures above 75 degrees Fahrenheit (23.88 degrees Celsius) during 6- to 8-month physical maturations.

Physically and sexually mature eastern fence lizards one year old and older queue up 3.5- to 7.5-inch (8.89- to 19.05-centimeter) total lengths and 0.53-ounce (15-grams) weights. Adults reveal black streaks running backward from each eye, black-brown-gray sides, brown-gray-, wavy-crossbanded upper-sides, dull, pointed, ridged scales and 21 to 36 pores in yellowed thighs. Downward- and upward-closing eyelids, nictitating membranes, shape-shifting lenses and cornea-moisturizing glands and vibration-sensitive tympanic membranes, tympanic cavity bones, Eustachian tubes and pharynxes sift sights and sounds.

Grassy, woody southeastern North American eastern fence lizard habitats tender brown-green-rusty bodies, ear openings, movable eyelids, same-sized back-scales, sharp-toothed jaws, striped backs and four five-clawed legs.

upper (top) and lower (bottom) views of Scleroporus undulatus: J.E. Holbrook's North American Herpetology (1838), Public Domain, via Biodiversity Heritage Library

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

plateau lizard (Sceloperus undulatus tristichus) consuming a juvenile desert spiny lizard (Sceloporus magister); Zion National Park, southwestern Utah; Aug. 25, 2011: Christopher Gezon/Zion National Park (ZionNPS), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/zionnps/6086943834/

dorsal (top) and ventral (bottom) views of Scleroporus undulatus; J. Sera, illustration; P. (Peter) S. Duval, lithography; J.E. Holbrook's North American Herpetology (1838), vol. III, Plate VIII, opposite page 51: Public Domain via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/3683026

For further information:

Boulenger, G.A. (George Albert). 1882. "Description of an Apparently New Species of Lizard of the Genus Sceloporus: Scleoporus garmani, sp. n. (Plate LVI)." Proceedings of the Scientific Meetings of the Zoological Society of London for the Year 1882: 761-762; Plate LVI. London, England: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/28679202
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/30826154
Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/stream/proceedingsofgen82zool#page/n919/mode/1up

Green, Jacob. August 1818. "Descriptions of Several Species of North American Amphibia, Accompanied With Observations: L. hyacinthina." Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, vol. I, part II, no. 2 (May-December 1818): 349. Philadelphia PA: Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 1818.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/24680621
Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/stream/journalofacademy01acaduoft#page/349/mode/1up

Holbrook, John Edwards. 1838. "Tropidolepsis undulatus -- Bosc. Plate VIII." North American Herpetology; Or, A Description of the Reptiles Inhabiting the United States. Vol. III: 51-54. Philadelphia PA: J. Dobson.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/3683026

Lowe, Charles H., Jr.; and Kenneth S. Norris. 1956. "A Subspecies of the Lizard Sceloporus undulatus from the White Sands of New Mexico: Scleporus undulatus cowlesi subsp. nov." Herpetologica, vol. 12, no. 2 (May 28, 1956): 126-127.
Available via JSTOR @ http://www.jstor.org/stable/3889937

Maslin, T.P. (T. Paul). 1956. "Sceloporus undulatus erythrocheilus ssp. nov. (Reptilia, Iguanidae), from Colorado." Herpetologica, vol. 12, no. 4 (Dec. 31, 1956): 291-294. Austin TX: Herpetologists' League.
Available via JSTOR @ http://www.jstor.org/stable/3889841

Pianka, Eric R., PhD. 2003. "Squamata (Lizards and snakes)." Pages 195-208. In: Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia, 2nd edition. Volume 7, Reptiles, edited by Michael Hutchins, James B. Murphy, and Neil Schlager. Farmington Hills MI: Gale Group.

Smith, Hobart M.; Edwin L. Bell; John S. Applegarth; and David Chiszar. 1992. "Adaptive Convergence in the Lizard Superspecies Sceloporus undulatus: Sceloporus undulatus tedbrowni ssp. nov." Bulletin of the Maryland Herpetological Society, vol. 28, no. 4 (Dec. 31, 1992): 124-136.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/54730258

Smith, Hobart M.; David Chiszar; Julio A. Lemos-Espinal; and Edwin L. Bell. 1995. "The Cabeza de Vaca Basin Subspecies of the Lizard Sceloporus undulatus: Sceloporus undulatus speari, subsp. nov." Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science, vol. 98, no. 1/2 (May 1995): 45-60.
Available via JSTOR @ http://www.jstor.org/stable/3628078

Smith, Hobart M.; David Chiszar; and Julio A. Lemos-Espinal. 1995. "A New Subspecies of the Polytypic Lizard Species Sceloporus undulatus (Sauria, Iguanidae) From Mexico." Texas Journal of Science, vol. 47, no. 2 (May 1995): 117-143. Lubbock TX: Texas Academy of Science.
Available @ http://www.freepatentsonline.com/article/Texas-Journal-Science/128607819.html

Sonnini, C.S. (Charles-Nicolas-Sigisbert); P.A. (Pierre André) Latreille. 1801."Le Stellio ondulé, Stellio undulatus [Bosc et Daudin]." Histoire Naturelle des Reptiles, Avec Figures Dessinées d'après Nature. Première Partie: Quadrupèdes et Bipèdes Ovipares. Tome deux: 40-42. Paris, France: Imprimerie de Crapelet, An X (September 1801-September 1802).
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/3695588
Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/stream/histoirenaturell02sonn#page/40/mode/1up

Stejneger, Leonhard. 1890. "Results of a Biological Study of the San Francisco Mountain Region and Desert of the Little Colorado, Arizona. Part V. Annotated List of Reptiles and Batrachians Collected by Dr. C. Hart Merriam and Vernon Bailey on the San Francisco Mountain Plateau and Desert of the Little Colorado, Arizona, With Descriptions of New Species: Sceloporus elongatus, sp. nov." North American Fauna, no. 3 (Sept. 11, 1890): 111-112. Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1890.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/25799684
Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/stream/northamericanfau14unit#page/111/mode/1up

Uetz, Peter. "Sceloporus undulatus (Bosc & Daudin, 1801)." Reptile Database.
Available @ http://reptile-database.reptarium.cz/species?genus=Sceloporus&species=undulatus&search_param=%28%28search%3D%27Sceloporus+undulatus%27%29%29

Yarrow, H.C. (Henry Crécy). 1875. "Report Upon the Collections of Batrachians and Reptiles Made in Portions of Nevada, Utah, California, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona, During the Years 1871, 1872, 1873, and 1874: Sceloporus jarrovii, Cope, sp. nov. Plate XXIII . . . Sceloporus tristichus, Cope, sp. nov. . . Sceloporus smaragdinis, Cope, sp. nov. Plate XXIV, Fig. 2." Report Upon Geographical and Geological Explorations and Surveys West of the One Hundredth Meridian. Wheeler, Vol. V. -- Zoology, Chapter IV: 569-572. Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1875.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/2555838