New Horned Lizard Species Discovered in Southern Mexico
Posted on May 16, 2014
A new horned lizard species has been discovered in southern Mexico. The proposed name for the new species is Phrynosoma sherbrookei. There are sixteen known species of horned lizards. This would be the seventeenth species. The lizards have a scaly back and little horns on their heads.
The lizards use camouflage to hide from predators. They can also puff out their bodies. Some horned lizards species can squirt blood form their eyes. This special defense is achieved by rupturing capillaries surrounding their eyes. The new species has not been seen using the squirting blood defense.
The newly discovered lizards eat ants. They mate in the spring. The region the lizards inhabit in central northeastern Guerrero is temperate and subhumid in the summer. Specimens of the new horned lizard species were collected in the Sierra Madre del Sur. DNA analysis revealed they are species that is new to science. A research paper was published here in the journal Herpetologica, which is a quarterly journal of The Herpetologists' League published by Allen Press.
