The Uta Project's Journal

Now that we're past early July, lizards throughout the distribution of Side-blotched Lizards are feeling summer's sting. Uta still come out this time of year, but only early in the day or late in the afternoon. The heat of the day is just too much for them. The biggest, oldest female Side-blotched Lizards are finishing their fourth and final clutches in the far north of eastern Oregon (@laura99) and Idaho (@phytographer) right about now. Smaller young-of-the-year gravid females appear to be finishing their second clutches. Many of those can still be observed the past few weeks (@cjackson, @adirado).

Farther south the hatchlings are appearing in earnest throught the range with vividness of that solid colored head being a good indicator of their hatchling status (examples here, here, here, and here by @juanloredo, @alderjulius, @hsug1747, @susanmf. The pattern of hatchlings is pretty vibrant as well because they are so fresh and new.

Since 20 June, 2024, when I last reviewed the Uta observations, there have been 309 observations. Observations of note include:

—this observation of a particularly colorful male by @ocmelissa.

—this observation of a late-season copulation by @dalemeister.

—this nicely gravid female with a late-season clutch by @misstaken.

The observation of the week goes to @cwbarrows for this observation of a depredation event on Uta by a Roadrunner, which are voracious lizards predators. That is an adult male that the Roadrunner caught, so a nice substantial meal at least. Here's to hoping the Uta had a chance to reproduce before being consumed. This is a great photograph too, so thanks to @cwbarrows for sharing.

As always, thank you to everyone who has observed a Side-blotched Lizards in the past few weeks. Your contributions are greatly appreciated.
—Pete Zani

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In the past 8 days or so since the last post, there have been 133 observations of Uta added to iNaturalist...all U. stansburiana. There are still late-season gravid females running around across the range of Uta so long as there isn't local drought. A number of sightings of such females, such as here, here, here, and here, should come through late July at least (by @bonnienickel @desertslender @editwench @decoyhedgehog ). However, the proportion of the population breeding will decrease and more and more observations will be of post reproductive females, like here, here, and here (@jeffwitters @jorgehvaldez ).

Observations of very late season copulations are also appreciated, such here (by @kestrelsparverius )

The colors on males will begin to fade (such as here and here) as their testosterone titers drop following pretty close on the heels of the last ovulating female (by @lonnyholmes @ncjordan). There are still some nice observations of these males though, such as this brute (@tmvan1 )

It's baby lizard season!!!
Really, it's the hatchling that dominate observations right now, such as here, here, here, here, here, and here (by @owenthebug @sam0127 @brycethebug @lilly175 @lonnyholmes @jorgehvaldez). I saw several hatchlings last week in Oregon, so they're hatching across the range right now.

Despite all of the above interesting and worthy observations, I selected this observation by @tmvan1 of a large gravid female in really pretty breeding coloration of orange under the chin and around the blotch. Older Uta sometimes really maintain that color nicely across the length of the breeding season. For example, farther north where females can live to be three, four, or even older, sometimes they really get an orange blush across the entire breast. In southern populations this only shows as orange in the armpit area, or around the blotch. Regardless, this female was a really pretty observation, so thanks for sharing @tmvan1.

As always, thank you to everyone who has observed a Side-blotched Lizards in the past few weeks. Your contributions are greatly appreciated.
—Pete Zani

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