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With its cryptic coloration and flat body, the flat-tailed horned lizard is capable of disappearing on the desert floor. When a predator threatens, the lizard may run a short distance and then stop unexpectedly; it will then lie motionless and blend into the sand, leaving its predator befuddled. But as farms and cities spread and off-road vehicles tear up the terrain, the flat-tailed horned lizard’s disappearing act may soon be all too real.
ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT PROFILE
PROTECTION STATUS: Not listed
LISTING HISTORY: First proposed for listing by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1993; proposal withdrawn in 1997, litigated and remanded; new withdrawal in 2001; listing re-proposed in 2005; new proposal withdrawn in 2006
RANGE: Endemic to the Sonoran Desert in southern California (San Diego, Riverside, and Imperial counties), Arizona (Yuma County), and northwestern Mexico (Sonora and Baja)
THREATS: Urban and agricultural development, off-road vehicle activity, energy development, military activities, introduction of nonnative plants, pesticide use, and habitat degradation due to Border Patrol and illegal drive-through traffic along the United States-Mexico border
POPULATION TREND: The species is considered to be in moderate decline.
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SAVING THE flat-tailed horned lizard
In 1980, the flat-tailed horned lizard in California was designated a sensitive species by the Bureau of Land Management. But it was not until 1993 that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service finally proposed listing the lizard as a threatened species.
Since then, the species has been proposed for consideration three times by the agency, which has each time subsequently withdrawn its own listing proposal. In reaction to the second withdrawal in 2001, the Center and its allies — including the Tucson Herpetological Society, Horned Lizard Conservation Society, and Defenders of Wildlife — filed suit against the agency in 2003. We won in 2005 when a federal court ruled that the Service’s withdrawal of its proposed rule was a violation of the Endangered Species Act. Yet in 2006, the Service again withdrew its proposal to list, and we went to court once more.
In 2007, the second withdrawal was upheld by the court, and the Center and allies appealed. An appeal challenging the 2001 and 2006 withdrawals was still pending in the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court when this page was posted.
The Center’s work to protect the lizard includes ongoing advocacy to defend the Algodones Dunes from off-road excess and control urban sprawl in Southern California.
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Contact: Lisa Belenky
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