Texas Horned Lizard

About the Texas Horned Lizard

The "horny toad" needs no introduction to any Texan over forty - the flat, spike-crowned little dragon of sandlots and pastures is the official state reptile, a childhood memory, and a genuine conservation story all at once. Finding one in 2023, as here, is an event worth photographing.

The Texas Horned Lizard is an ant specialist. Big red harvester ants make up most of its diet, eaten by the dozen at a sitting, and that specialty is central to its decline: fire ants, pesticides, and habitat loss have wiped out harvester ant colonies across much of the state, and the horned lizards went with them, vanishing from most of East and Central Texas.

Its defenses are legendary: crypsis first, then the crown of horns, a body flattened and tilted to look unswallowable - and, in extremity, the famous trick of squirting blood from the corners of its eyes, which is genuinely distasteful to canine predators.

State-threatened and beloved, the species persists in South and West Texas, and zoo-led reintroductions are working to bring the horny toad home.