One thing that perplexed me when I moved to New Mexico was how many whiptail lizards were to be found -- and how many of those had stripes. How the heck do you tell them all apart? I soon bought several guidebooks to help me unravel the puzzle, but not until I invested in "Amphibians and Reptiles of New Mexico" by Degenhardt, Painter, and Price was I able to actually sort out the chaos with any certainty. This text is not for the light reader as it hits you with hard scientific detail. Unfortunately, the binding of this inch-thick treatise does not hold up to repeated use; mine is falling apart with the picture plates acting like removable inserts.
Sure, some of these lizards are not that hard to identify, but others definitely are! One of the most challenging barriers to identifying whiptails is that they are generally bloody skidish, lightning fast, and some, like Aspidoscelis tigris, have a rotten nack of darting into rodent burrows when pursued. Photographing them, therefore, has its own set of challenges. I will not give away all my secrets to capturing these images, but trust that it requires a great deal of time in the desert. I've got a heck of a tan, but have to work hard to avoid getting burnt!
At the top of the confusion meter are A. velox, the Plateau Striped Whiptail, and A. uniparens, the Desert Grassland Whiptail (top and second photos, respectively). These are probably the hardest of the New Mexico whiptails to tell apart. Close inspection is required, but there are subtle differences in the striped pattern -- the stripes are, unfortunately, just not entirely diagnostic.
Our next candidate is A. inornatus, the Little Striped Whiptail. This whiptail is a dead giveaway given the blue pigmentation of the face and tail. Or, so one would think. The next down, however, is A. neomexicanus, the New Mexico Whiptail, and many of this species display a fair blue hue in tail and face. The stripes in this lizard, however, are quite diagnostic. The lizard has both stripes and spots, but the middle stripe gets rather zig-zaggy as it moves down the lizard's back.
Another striped and spotted lizard is found next in our lineup. This is A. exsanguis, the Chihuahuan Spotted Whiptail. This is a bit larger whiptail, like the next two.
Next we have our horizontally striped whiptails of A. tesselata, the Colorado Checkered Whiptail, and A. tigris, the Western Whiptail. These two can be equally hard to tell apart, especially in the wild. Can you see the difference?
One might now ask, is this all of the New Mexico whiptail species? The answer is "No!" There are actually another seven or so species to eventually be added to my lineup. I just have not "created" the opportunity to photograph them yet! Maybe in the coming weeks to months...
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