Chuckwalla and rocky textures in Death Valley

This chuckwalla lizard was hanging out near the Dante's View scenic area in Death Valley National Park. It's interesting how the texture of the lizard's skin so closely blends with the textures in the rocks. Chuckwalla's are very comfortable moving around rocks and wedging themselves into the crevices between rocks. One method that chuckwallas use to keep away from predators is to flee into a crevice, then inflate their bodies to create enough pressure that they cannot be dislodged. This one, though, was out in the open for quite a while when people were walking past and looking at the view of Death Valley and the Badwater Basin and also noticing this large lizard sunning itself.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story!

Sagebrush Lizard, Death Valley; America's Next Top Lizard's Closeup

This is the same lizard as the previous post.  Bob had his camera set to do closeup shots of the wildflowers in bloom, so he tried to get a closeup of this lizard, since he seemed to be very cooperative about letting us take photos of him.  Bob was able to get within an inch of his face to get this shot.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story.

"America's Next Top Lizard", a sagebrush lizard at Dante's View, Death Valley National Park

While in Death Valley during this year's "superbloom", we went to Dante's View to look down on Death Valley from a high vantage point and managed to find a photogenic lizard. This little guy stayed on the top of this rock for over half an hour. We got closer and closer to it to get pictures and it didn't seem to mind at all. Eventually, we even put on close up lenses and got pictures of its face. The lenses came to within an inch of its face, but it still didn't move. Rick started calling it "America's Next Top Lizard", because it turned out to be such a good model for us. We pointed it out to people passing by and they were able to get their smartphones close to it for close up images, too. It finally left after we saw an insect land on the rock below it and the lizard dropped down quickly to snatch the bug in its mouth, then it scampered off to the ground and continued on its way. We wished we had a camcorder running to catch that action, but we missed it. This was the same cluster of rocks where we saw the chuckwalla shown in our earlier post.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story!