Reptilia · Squamata
Phrynosoma hernandesiGirard, 1858
Baur’s Short-horned Lizard
Photograph by Bob Walker, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating lizard from the Nearctic region, reaching 125 mm snout to vent.
Also called Great Plains Short-horned Lizard, San Luis Valley Short-horned Lizard, Short-tail Short-horned Lizard.
Reptilia › Squamata › Phrynosomatidae › Phrynosoma
- Grows to
- 125mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 8.5years
Longer than 92% of all species in Phrynosomatidae anyone has measured.
The bar is the rank itself: its length is the share of the family this animal exceeds. The chart below is the family’s real spread, on a logarithmic scale because body length here runs from 47 to 175 mm. The solid rule is this animal. Every bar is a count of real species, and nothing on this figure is estimated.
What is known
43 sourced facts, each taken from a named scientific dataset. How to read these.
Cited from a dataset unless a row is marked otherwise.
Standing in the world
- Still living
- Extant
- Conservation status
- Least Concern
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2007
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 8.5years
- Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradientmeasured
- 32.9°C
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 33°C91 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 25–41°C77–106 °F
Montanucci 1983: "The mother (RRM 2350) of the captive-reared lizards was an apparently old adult when collected in 1977." - she dies 5.5 years later, assuming she was at least 3 when captured (douglassi, somewhat smaller, mature at 2 years) I write 8.5, "about 8 years" (Lemos-Espinal et al. 2013)
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 125mm5 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 76.9mm3 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 76.9mm3 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 26mm1 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 26mm1 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 57.34g2 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 1g0.04 oz
max 125 mm SVL (Feldman et al. 2016)
snout-vent length; the source column mixes this with straight carapace length
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Sit and wait
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Desert, Forest, Grassland, Rocky, Shrubland
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Active season · months of the year
- 5–9months
- Region
- Nearctic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 170–3440m
- Range size
- 614,726km²
Invertebrates (insects, mainly ants, Jones and Lovich 2009, St. John 2002, Heimes 2022), mainly ants but less so than other Phrynosoma (Hibbitts and Hibbitts 2015, Rorabaugh and Lemos-Espinal 2016), arhtropods and snails (Stebbins and McGinnis 2018)
e.g., Russell and Bauer 2000
e.g., Rorabaugh and Lemos-Espinal 2016, Heimes 2022
e.g., Olberding et al. 2016
1638-3300 (Lemos-Espinal et al. 2013), to 11000ft (Young 2011), 1500-2422 (Rorabaugh and Lemos-Espinal 2016), 170-3440 (Stebbins and McGinnis 2018), 600-3200 (Clifton et al. 2021), 1500-2422 (Heimes 2022)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Average clutch
- 18eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 5–48eggs
- Mean clutch
- 16–23.5eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 1per year
- Clutches a year
- 1per year
- First breeds at
- 18–24months
5-36 (St. John 2002), 17 (Montanucci 1983), 9-26, mean 16 (Goldberg 2014), 6-31, mean 16 (Hibbitts and Hibbitts 2015), 9-30, mean 17 (Lemos-Espinal et al. 2013), 5-48, mean 16 (Rorabaugh and Lemos-Espinal 2016), 5-48 (Stebbins and McGinnis 2018), 9-48, mean 23.5 (Heimes 2022), Dominguez-Guerrero et al. 2022 (mean 16.7),
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Pleurodonta
- Subspecies
- Phrynosoma hernandesi hernandesi GIRARD 1858 Phrynosoma hernandesi ornatum GIRARD 1858
- Described by
- Girard
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1858
- Type locality
- USA
Keeping one
19.5 in × 19.5 in × 12.5 in(50 × 50 × 31 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better.
The standard sizes ground-dwelling species at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times snout-vent length.
Mindestanforderungen an die Haltung von Reptilien (Sachverständigengutachten), German Federal Ministry for Nutrition, Agriculture and Forestry, Animal Welfare Division, 10 January 1997. The standard states these floor areas are recommendations rather than binding limits.
From this animal’s own snout-vent length of 5 in (125 mm), at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
In a laboratory thermal gradient this species settled at 91 °F (32.9 °C).
Preferred body temperature, recorded in a laboratory gradient where the animal could choose freely. A measurement of the animal, not a setting for a thermostat.
Feeding
A prey item should be no wider than the space between the animal's eyes.
Widely used across reptile husbandry references. The stated reason is that the gap approximates the width of the throat, so wider prey is associated with impaction. This is established practice, not a measurement.
7kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 57 g, the heaviest recorded for Baur’s Short-horned Lizard — so it is the top of the range, not a figure for a particular animal. Weigh yours and the number will be lower.
An upper estimate, not a feeding target, and not veterinary advice. The equation covers only what an animal burns staying alive, so a growing, gravid or recovering animal needs more — and it was measured on wild animals, which move far more than one in an enclosure. Body condition and a vet who knows the species are what a feeding decision should rest on. Where this comes from.
What nobody knows
These are not gaps in our research. No scientific dataset records them for this species — and saying so is information you cannot get from a reference that simply leaves a field out.
- — Length snout to vent · adult male mean
- — Length snout to vent · adult mean
- — Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- — Female length · mean, nose to tail
- — Length nose to tail · adult male mean
- — Length nose to tail · adult mean
- — Largest male · snout to vent
- — Largest female · shell length
- — Largest male · shell length
- — Hatchling length · nose to tail
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — Body mass · adult female, mean
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Hatchling length · smallest recorded
- — Hatchling length · largest recorded
- — Age at first breeding · female
- — Mature from · youngest recorded
- — Mature by · oldest recorded
- — Size at maturity · smallest recorded
- — Size at maturity · largest recorded
- — Colour on the back
- — Pattern on the back
- — Pupil
- — Sex decided by
- — Red List criteria
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
Others in Phrynosomatidae
Take this data
Everything on this page is available as data under CC BY 4.0 — use it freely, credit it, no permission needed.
This species as JSON · the whole dataset
Cite this page
The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia (2026). Phrynosoma hernandesi. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/phrynosoma-hernandesi
@misc{phrynosoma_hernandesi_2026,
title = {Phrynosoma hernandesi},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/phrynosoma-hernandesi}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.
- Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.