Reptilia · Squamata
Phrynosoma platyrhinosGirard, 1852
Desert Horned Lizard
Photograph placed in the public domain, CC0, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating lizard from the Nearctic region, reaching 95 mm snout to vent.
Once published as Doliosaurus platyrhinos — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Phrynosomatidae › Phrynosoma
- Grows to
- 95mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 8years
Longer than 61% 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
45 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
- 2016
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 8years
- Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradientmeasured
- 36°C
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 35.5°C96 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 34.2–36.8°C94–98 °F
Stebbins and McGinnis 2012: 8; Medica and Turner 1984: 82 months
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 95mm3.75 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 79.9mm3.25 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 79.9mm3.25 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 26mm1 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 26mm1 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 27.5g0.97 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 0.8g0.03 oz
max 95 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, Shrubland
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Active season · months of the year
- 6months
- Region
- Nearctic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1980m
- Range size
- 836,126km²
- Density
- 1–6.5per hectare
- Home range · largest recorded
- 20,709m2
Arthropods and some plant material (Stebbins 2003, Greene 1982, Stebbins and McGinnis 2018)/ Arthropods, mainly ants (Grismer)/ Arthropods (mainly ants), >1% plant material (Pianka and Parker 1975, Pianka 1986) / arthropods and berries (Stebbins and McGinnis 2012), mainly ants, also beetles, few other insects (Storm and Leonard 1995)
e.g., Mesquita et al. 2016, Storm and Leonard 1995
Diurnal and Crepuscular / diurnal and heliothermic (Clusella-Trullas et al. 2008)
e.g., Mesquita et al. 2016, Olberding et al. 2016
max 1460 (Storm and Leonard 1995), below sea level to 1980 (Stebbins and McGinnis 2018), max 2000 (Heimes 2022)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 5.52eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 2–16eggs
- Mean clutch
- 2–9eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 1.5per year
- Clutches a year
- 1–2per year
- First breeds at
- 19–24months
6-8 on average (Stebbins and McGinnis 2012), 4-11, mean 6.9 (Goldberg 2012), 2-16 (St. John 2002, Stebbins and McGinnis 2018), means 2-8.25 (Mesquita et al. 2016), 10 (Shaw 1952, n=1), 9-13 (Storm and Leonard 1995), up to 10 (Grismer and Grismer 2022), 4-8 (Heimes 2022), Dominguez-Guerrero et al. 2022 (mean 7.7),
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Pleurodonta
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Girard
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1852
- Type locality
- USA
Keeping one
15 in × 15 in × 9.25 in(38 × 38 × 24 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 3.75 in (95 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 97 °F (36 °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.
4kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 28 g, the heaviest recorded for Desert 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
- — Active in
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
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 platyrhinos. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/phrynosoma-platyrhinos
@misc{phrynosoma_platyrhinos_2026,
title = {Phrynosoma platyrhinos},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/phrynosoma-platyrhinos}
}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.