Professor searches for rare spot-tailed, earless lizards
Rosie Githinji
Issue date: 2/26/09 Section: News
When most children were playing fetch with their dogs, biological sciences professor Ralph Axtell was building cages that housed the rattlesnakes he would hunt down as a young man.
Axtell said he has had a fascination with reptiles for most of his life. As a boy, Axtell moved to Texas City, Texas and one day, while walking down an alleyway with his father, found some snakes.
"We were walking around and decided to walk down this alley. There was a lot of trash, and I lifted up some cardboard and found these snakes underneath," Axtell said. "I had to find out what they were."
His father bought Axtell books to identify the reptiles. Axtell's childhood interest moved on to the lizards that are now part of his life's work.
After moving to Bishop, Texas, Axtell saw lizards running across the road, and his fascination with these lizards is one of the reasons Axtell is now considered a leading expert on the Holbrookia lacerata subcudalis, more commonly known as the spot-tailed, earless lizard.
Chair of the Department of Biology William Retzlaff said Axtell is a highly respected member of the faculty at the SIUE Department of Biology.
"It is certainly an honor for him (to be at SIUE) and this department at SIUE because he is considered an expert in his area of work," Retzlaff said.
According to Axtell, these particular lizards are a sub species of the Holbrookia lacerata, which was first discovered in the 1800s and can be found from Nebraska to New Mexico. Axtell renamed the southern species of the lizard while he was a graduate student at University of Texas and has spent more than 50 years studying these creatures.
Axtell will return to Texas during spring break and again in the summer to look for these lizards.
"I don't have anything to do with preserving this species," Axtell said. "I am just trying to find them."
Mike Duran, a vertebrate zoologist with the Nature Conservancy of Texas, will work with Axtell when he is in Texas. Duran said he and Axtell will visit more than 170 locations in the areas the spot-tailed, earless lizard is believed to live, documenting the animals' habitats.
Duran said these lizards are particularly sensitive to environmental circumstances and are more likely to be found in the spring and summer because they are a warm-weather species.
The lizard is not considered extinct, but Duran said its rareness is ranked as a three on a scale where one is the most rare and five is the least rare.
"Originally these [lizards] were all one species. Currently the one we are looking at occurs around the San Angelo area. That's the only place this species occurs," Duran said. "We just don't have enough information to rank this species."
For more information on these lizards, visit nature.org/texas.
Axtell said he has had a fascination with reptiles for most of his life. As a boy, Axtell moved to Texas City, Texas and one day, while walking down an alleyway with his father, found some snakes.
"We were walking around and decided to walk down this alley. There was a lot of trash, and I lifted up some cardboard and found these snakes underneath," Axtell said. "I had to find out what they were."
His father bought Axtell books to identify the reptiles. Axtell's childhood interest moved on to the lizards that are now part of his life's work.
After moving to Bishop, Texas, Axtell saw lizards running across the road, and his fascination with these lizards is one of the reasons Axtell is now considered a leading expert on the Holbrookia lacerata subcudalis, more commonly known as the spot-tailed, earless lizard.
Chair of the Department of Biology William Retzlaff said Axtell is a highly respected member of the faculty at the SIUE Department of Biology.
"It is certainly an honor for him (to be at SIUE) and this department at SIUE because he is considered an expert in his area of work," Retzlaff said.
According to Axtell, these particular lizards are a sub species of the Holbrookia lacerata, which was first discovered in the 1800s and can be found from Nebraska to New Mexico. Axtell renamed the southern species of the lizard while he was a graduate student at University of Texas and has spent more than 50 years studying these creatures.
Axtell will return to Texas during spring break and again in the summer to look for these lizards.
"I don't have anything to do with preserving this species," Axtell said. "I am just trying to find them."
Mike Duran, a vertebrate zoologist with the Nature Conservancy of Texas, will work with Axtell when he is in Texas. Duran said he and Axtell will visit more than 170 locations in the areas the spot-tailed, earless lizard is believed to live, documenting the animals' habitats.
Duran said these lizards are particularly sensitive to environmental circumstances and are more likely to be found in the spring and summer because they are a warm-weather species.
The lizard is not considered extinct, but Duran said its rareness is ranked as a three on a scale where one is the most rare and five is the least rare.
"Originally these [lizards] were all one species. Currently the one we are looking at occurs around the San Angelo area. That's the only place this species occurs," Duran said. "We just don't have enough information to rank this species."
For more information on these lizards, visit nature.org/texas.
Be the first to comment on this story