SE Alberta home to endangered short-horned lizard
The Nature Conservancy of Canada does annual surveys for short-horned lizards on one of the properties they manage, and this year found a record number of eight lizards.
Megan Jensen, NCC’s natural area manager for southeast Alberta, explained that other properties might have more, but this is the only one NCC manages, and this is the highest number of lizards they’ve found since they started doing inventories.
“This is the very northern part of their range in Canada,” said Jensen. “They are only found in the very southeast corner of Alberta and the southwest of Saskatchewan. They are unique, they don’t lay eggs, like many other lizard species. They have live young so they tend to have lots of them. The thing with short-horned lizards is we are very data deficient, that’s why it’s important to go out and do inventories.”
The lizards are very small and only found in isolated areas. They don’t travel very far and there are lots of threats to them, such as predation, roads and industrial development. Snakes and coyotes are two species that eat them.
Their primary defense is camouflage but will, in a last-ditch effort, also shoot blood out of their eyes to deter a predator.
Short-horned lizards feed mostly on insects and tend to like ants. Camouflage is important for feeding as well, as they prefer to sit and wait for their food to walk by.
In the winter, they dig a hole to burrow into for hibernation. The lizards have been seen as late as November but usually disappear into the ground sometime in September.
“If there isn’t enough snowpack, they are more subject to death due to lack of insulation,” explained Jensen. Another one of the different obstacles these unique creatures face living in Alberta and Saskatchewan compared those living further south.