THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY

Reptilia    Squamata (part-other lizards)    Crotaphytidae  

Long-nosed Leopard Lizard
Gambelia wislizenii (Baird and Girard, 1852)
gam-BEL-ee-uh — wis-LIZ-en-ee-eye

SSAR 9th Edition Comments:
 See note on G. sila regarding hybridization between that species and G. wislizenii. (de Queiroz, Kevin and Lauren M. Chan. 2025. Squamata (excluding snakes) – Lizards. Pages 23-37 in Kirsten E. Nicholson (Editor), Scientific and Standard English Names of Amphibians and Reptiles of North America North of Mexico, with Comments Regarding Confidence in Our Understanding, 9th Edition. Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles, Lawrence, Kansas. 87 pp.)

Range maps are based on curated specimens and provided gratis by CNAH.
(Created by Travis W. Taggart; Version: 2024.12.02.10.31.21)
Download GeoJSON polygon range file: - 1.43 MB

Province/State Distribution:
United States: Arizona California Colorado Idaho Nevada New Mexico Oregon Texas Utah

Taxonomic Etymology:
Found in arid regions of the western U.S.
Gambelia — Named in honor of William Gambel (1823–1849), a young American naturalist and explorer who died of typhoid at just 25 years old while serving as a surgeon during the Mexican-American War. The recognition commemorates his early but influential contributions to American natural history.
wislizenii — Patronym honoring Frederick Adolph Wislizenus (1810–1889), a German-born American physician, botanist, and explorer. He participated in several expeditions in the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. Latinized genitive form of Wislizenus → “of Wislizenus”.

First instance(s) of published English names:
Banded Lizard (Crotaphytus wislizeni: Cooper, James G. 1869. The fauna of California and its geographical distribution. Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences 4():61-81); Wislizenins' Lizard (Crotaphytus wislizeni: Yarrow, Henry C. 1882. Check list of North American Reptilia and Batrachia with catalogue of specimens in U. S. National Museum. Bulletin of the United States National Museum (24):1-249); Leopard Lizard (Crotaphytus wislizenii: Stejneger, Leonhard H. 1893. Annotated list of the reptiles and batrachians collected by the Death Valley Expedition in 1891, with descriptions of new species. North American Fauna 7():159–228); Leopard Lizard (Crotaphytus wislizenii: Van Denburgh, John. 1897. The reptiles of the Pacific Coast and Great Basin: An account of the species known to inhabit California, and Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Nevada. Occasional Papers of the California Academy of Sciences 5():9-236); Leopard Lizard (Crotaphytus wislizeni: Schmidt, Karl P. 1953. A Check List of North American Amphibians and Reptiles. 6th Edition. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois. 280pp.); Leopard Lizard (Crotaphytus wislizeni wislizeni: Schmidt, Karl P. 1953. A Check List of North American Amphibians and Reptiles. 6th Edition. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois. 280pp.);

Taxon Links:

  
Catalog of American Amphibians and Reptiles
  
The Reptile Database
  
NatureServe
  
iNaturalist
  
GenBank
  
USGS - Nonindigenous Aquatic Species Database

Selected References:
1852 Baird, Spencer F. and Charles Girard. Reptiles. Pages 336-365 in Howard Stansbury's, An expedition to the valley of the Great Salt Lake of Utah: Including a description of its geography, natural history, and minerals, and an analysis of its waters: With an authentic account of the Mormon Settlement: Also, a reconnoissance [sic] of a new route through the Rocky Mountains. Sampson Low, Son, and Company., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 487pp. US House of Representatives, Washington. pp.
1853 Hallowell, Edward. On a new genus and three new species of reptiles inhabiting North America. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 6:206–209
1890 Stejneger, Leonhard H. Part V. - Annotated list of reptiles and batrachians collected by Dr. C. Hart Merriam and Vernon Bailey on the San Francisco Mountain Plateau and Desert of the Little Colorado, Arizona, with descriptions of new species. North American Fauna 3(3):103-118
1890 Merriam, C. Hart. Part I. - General results of a biological survey of the San Francisco Mountain Region in Arizona, with special reference to the distribution of species. North American Fauna 3(3):5-34
1975 Montanucci, Ricahrd R., Ralph W. Axtell, and Herbert C. Dessauer. Evolutionary divergence among collared lizards (Crotaphytus), with comments on the status of Gambelia. Herpetologica 31:336-347
1975 Stewart, Glenn R. and Ronald S. Daniel. Microornamentation of lizard scales: Some variations and taxonomic correlations. Herpetologica 31(1):117-130
1978 Montanucci, Richard R. Dorsal pattern polymorphism and adaptation in Gambelia wislizenii (Reptilia, Lacertilia, Iguanidae). Journal of Herpetology 12(1):73-81
1996 McGuire, Jimmy A. Phylogenetic systematics of crotaphytid lizards (Reptilia: Iguania: Crotaphytidae). Bulletin of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History 32:iv + 1-143
2007 McGuire, Jimmy A., Charles W. Linkem, Michelle S. Koo, Delbert W. Hutchison, A. Kristopher Lappin, David I. Orange, Julio Lemos-Espinal, Brett R. Riddle, and Jef R. Jaeger. Mitochondrial introgression and incomplete lineage sorting through space and time: Phylogenetics of Crotaphytid lizards. Evolution 61-(12):2879–2897
2017 Bezy, Robert L., Philip C. Rosen, Thomas R. Van Devender, and Erik F. Enderson. Southern distributional limits of the Sonoran Desert herpetofauna along the mainland coast of northwestern Mexico Mesoamerican Herpetology 4(1):138-167

THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY — Accessed: Friday 05 December 2025 15:50 CT