94: Hernandez's Short-horned Lizard

I write to you from Arapahoe, Ute, and Cheyenne land. I am interested in learning about the different animals that live in the place where I was born. Before we start with today’s animal, I want to emphasize that biological classification as understood by western society has its roots in racism, sexism, and transphobia – here’s a good explainer about why.

It's been a tough day here in Colorado but that seems like a good reason to celebrate the only local reptile that gives live birth – that’s right, it’s Hernandez’s Short-horned lizard, also known as the Greater Short-Horned Lizard (Phrynosoma Hernandesi) (greater than what?). These reptiles – with disc-shaped torsos and horned heads, legs, and tails – live across much of the state, even up to elevations of 11,000 feet above sea level. This is why they give live birth – an adaptation for the cool habitats where they live. They also hibernate from October to March. They are found almost everywhere in Colorado except the north-central mountains. They use a variety of techniques to evade predators, including camouflage, fleeing, squirting blood at a predator out of the corner of their eyes, and inflating their lungs to become too large to swallow.

I wondered who the lizard was named after: Francisco Hernández de Toledo, a Renaissance-era physician and natural scientist born in Toledo, Spain, in 1514, who translated Pliny the Elder into Castilian and became the personal physician to King Philip II before passing away in Madrid in 1587. From 1570 to 1577, he and his son Juan travelled in the Spanish New World studying medicinal plants and animals. He spent most of his time in Mexico, where he collected around 3000 species unknown to Europeans and interviewed many Indigenous people, learning and using the Nahuatl terms for the plants he described. He also acted as a physician in Tenochtitlan/Mexico City during the terrible epidemics that marked the end of the Mexica (Aztec) period there.

I made an attempt at drawing one of his namesake lizards, but turns out I’m just as bad at scales as I am at fur. Plus this guy would probably be mad that I made him appear both less spiny and less camouflaged than he is in real life!