I hope the photo is not too bad that this pretty lizard can't be identified. I think it was about 20 cm long. Could it be a Cnemidophorus tigris multiscutatus?
San Diego County, California, US
Couldn't believe my luck. Just basking there.
Watched him later when I came back down the trail chase another one off...
Western Whiptail (Aspidoscelis tigris), ~5 inch snout-vent length, Barker Dam, Joshua Tree National Park, Riverside County, California - May 2009.
The western whiptail (Aspidoscelis tigris (Baird and Girard, 1852) is a small lizard (adults average 25 to 35Â cm - about a foot - in length) that ranges throughout most of the southwestern United States. Most of its populations appear stable, and is not listed as endangered in any of the states comprising its range. It lives in a wide variety of habitats, including deserts and semiarid shrublands, usually in areas with sparse vegetation; also woodland, open...
