THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY

Reptilia    Squamata (part)    Phrynosomatidae  

Desert Spiny Lizard
Sceloporus magister Hallowell, 1854
see-lop-ER-rus — maj-ES-tur

SSAR 9th Edition Comments:
 Pavón-Vázquez et al. (2024, Systematic Biology 73: 323–342) inferred three lineages within the part of the Sceloporus magister complex that occurs north of Mexico: one in the Mojave Desert, Great Basin Desert, and Colorado Plateau, a second in the Sonoran Desert, and a third in the Chihuahuan Desert. Their results indicated both earlier divergence and less gene flow between the Chihuahuan Desert lineage and the other two lineages than between those two lineages. Although the authors treated all three lineages as a monotypic S. magister, their results would seem more accurately summarized by continuing (from the previous version of this list) to recognize the Chihuahuan Desert lineage as a separate species, S. bimaculosus, and the other two lineages (which were treated as separate species in the previous version of this list) as subspecies of S. magister. The standard English names of the subspecies have been changed to reflect the geographic distributions of the lineages.

Range maps are based on curated specimens and provided gratis by CNAH.
(Created by Travis W. Taggart; Version: 2023.04.10.13.21.21)
Download GeoJSON polygon range file: - 1.69 MB

Province/State Distribution:
USA: Arizona California Colorado Nevada New Mexico Texas Utah

First instance(s) of published English names:
Great Fence Lizard (Sceloporus magister: Cooper, James G. 1869. The fauna of California and its geographical distribution. Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences 4():61-81); Fence Lizard (Sceloporus magister: Cooper, James G. 1869. The naturalist in California. The American Naturalist 3(9):470-481); Scaly Lizard (Sceloporus magister: 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); Desert Scaly Lizard (Sceloporus magister: Van Denburgh, John. 1922. The Reptiles of Western North America: An Account of the Species Known to Inhabit California and Oregon, Washinton, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, British Columbia, Sonora, and Lower California. Volume I. Lizards. California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco. 556pp.); Desert Spiny Lizard (Sceloporus magister: Schmidt, Karl P. 1953. A Check List of North American Amphibians and Reptiles. 6th Edition. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois. 280pp.); Desert Spiny Lizard (Sceloporus magister magister: 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:
1854 Hallowell, Edward. Descriptions of new reptiles from California. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 7:91–97
1982 Parker, William S. Sceloporus magister. Catalogue of American Amphibians and Reptiles (290):1-4
1992 Sites, Jack W., Jr., J. W. Archie, C. J. Cole, and O. Flores Villela. A review of phylogenetic hypotheses for lizards of the genus Sceloporus (Phrynosomatidae): Implications for ecological and evolutionary studies. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History (213):1-110
1993 Wiens, John J. Phylogenetic relationships of phrynosomatid lizards and monophyly of the Sceloporus group. Copeia 1993(2):287-299
2010 Wiens, John J., Caitlin A. Kuczynski, Saad Arif, and Tod W. Reeder. Phylogenetic relationships of phrynosomatid lizards based on nuclear and mitochondrial data, and a revised phylogeny for Sceloporus. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 54:150-161
2010 Leaché, Adam D. and Jack W. Sites. Chromosome evolution and diversification in North American Spiny Lizards (genus Sceloporus). Cytogenetic and Genome Research 127(2-4):166-191
2010 Leaché, Adam D. Species trees for spiny lizards (Genus Sceloporus): Identifying points of concordance and conflict between nuclear and mitochondrial data. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 2010(54):162-171
2013 Lambert, Shea M. and John J. Wiens. Evolution of viviparity: A phylogenetic test of the cold-climate hypothesis in Phrynosomatid lizards. Evolution 67(9):2614–2630
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
2024 Pavón-Vázquez, Carlos J., Qaantah Rana, Keaka Farleigh, Erika Crispo, Mimi Zeng, Jeevanie Liliah, Daniel Mulcahy, Alfredo Ascanio, Tereza Jezkova, Adam D Leaché, Tomas Flouri, Ziheng Yang, and Christopher Blair. Gene flow and isolation in the arid nearctic revealed by genomic analyses of Desert Spiny Lizards. Systematic Biology 73(2):323-342

THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY — Accessed: Friday 13 June 2025 05:13 CT