A Gila Monster I followed to a nest of cottontails. It took a while, but it ate all three of them that were in there. Amazingly, they all fit, and the lizard ambled off to rest under an overhanging root in the drainage. It was a good example of how the venom of Gila Monsters is not necessary for predation, as the venom played no apparent role in the capture or consumption of its prey.
A Gila Monster out and about on a spring day a couple of years ago. On mild days, these animals start to move away from often communal dens to springtime staging areas. They may take daily patrols, searching for nesting mammals and quail eggs. It’s common for hikers to report them on social media frequently within a few days’ time, usually in late February or early March, which is a reliable signal that the process has begun each year.
I spotted this young Gila Monster on an isolated rocky area surrounded by desert grassland. Gilas in this area can often have more black mottling than the banded version found elsewhere in the state. We took some photos briefly and let it be on its way.
Central Baja California Banded Rock Lizard from … central Baja California, in the rocks.
A Chuckwalla surveys its vast domain, just north of the Grand Canyon. Here, these large herbivorous lizards take on a sandy, mottled color, making them harder to spot against the ground by predators flying overhead. For an observer at ground level, however, the shape of a vigilant lizards popping up from outcrops and boulders is much easier to spot.
Karnataka, India 2023
These sideblotched lizards are common and found about everywhere. Even in urban Phoenix and Tucson, they can be seen running around on the maze of block walls and stucco. This one is particularly colorful, found in northern Arizona.
A Greater Short-horned Lizard from central Arizona.
No doubt the comments will be full of “we call em horny toads as kids”. But, there’s more to it 🙂 These are lizards, rather than toads … which is a surprise to many born-and-raised Arizona residents.
There are also SEVEN distinct species of them in our state, all with their own appearance, habitat preferences, and specialized diet. So the “horny toads” you may recall playing with as kids may be entirely different than the species discussed.
And a favorite example of how confirmation bias can shape our perception of the world: another comment we always get on these posts is “used to see them all the time as a kid, not so much anymore”. While the population is in decline for some species, this is easily answered by answering this question: do you spend less time outdoors playing in the dirt as an older adult?
A Gila Monster moving through a burn scar in central Arizona. Last year, fire from an illegal campfire swept through the area, fueled by invasive grasses. This one managed to survive, but shows signs of how close it came to death – the top of its head and patches on its tail are black scars.
Wildfires like this are now common, as fires, OHV use, and target shooting spark them constantly. With hotter, drier years, and increased human activity in the area, another fire is likely as soon as there’s enough regrowth to burn. The landscape in another decade will be unrecognizable, without saguaro, native trees, and erosion erasing the rocky arroyos where the only surface water was available.
If your first reaction is to deny human involvement in all of this, a better use of time would be to stop watching political messaging and start looking out your own window.
Barra, C., Fule, M., Beers, R., McGuire, L., & Youberg, A. (2025). Soil biogeochemical and hydraulic property response to wildfire across forested ecosystems of the Santa Catalina Mountains, Arizona, USA. CATENA. Elsevier.
Boyle, J. M. (2025). Spatial and temporal trends of reburns in western US forests (Undergraduate thesis, Gettysburg College). Cupola: Scholarship at Gettysburg College.
Jiménez Morillo, N. T., Rosa Arranz, J. M., & Miller, A. Z. (2024). Soil degradation: Local solutions for a global problem. CSIC Digital Repository.
A pair of Gila Monsters getting some of their first sun in the early spring, a couple of years ago. They had only recently made a short walk from an overwintering den, where they had buried themselves in dirt at the base of a boulder, to this staging area. Here, at least five individuals spend time doing, basically, this, for about a month before heading out to do their mysterious Gila Monster things.
