[meteorite-list] Correction to Franconia horned lizard ID

From: Matson, Robert <ROBERT.D.MATSON_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sat Apr 23 15:50:39 2005
Message-ID: <AF564D2B9D91D411B9FE00508BF1C86904EE667A_at_US-Torrance.mail.saic.com>

2nd attempt...
- - - -

Hi All,

After visiting several more websites, I've concluded that my horned
lizard is actually not P. mcallii, but rather P. platyrhinos (Desert
Horned Lizard), which is not protected or endangered. I was thrown
off by the skull diagrams on this page:

http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~varanus/phryno.html

which don't show the occipital horns as being especially long.
In fact, both of these species have long horns, but platyrhinos
lacks the dorsal stripe and has a very rounded body:

http://imnh.isu.edu/digitalatlas/bio/reptile/lacer/phpl/phplfram.htm

If you scan down toward the bottom of the first link above, you'll
see a map of ranges for these beasties, and platyrhinos is the only
one shown for the Franconia/Lake Havasu area.

So Franconia meteorite hunters can rest easy (at least from the
possibility of closure due to an endangered species). Even if it
had been P. mcallii, this species is actually not (yet) on the
endangered species list. --Rob
Received on Sat 23 Apr 2005 03:51:11 PM PDT