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How does a horned lizard defend itself when faced with a predator?
Admired by native peoples for thousands of years, the
Texas horned lizard has an array of abilities. It mostly
eats ants – lots of them, and most parts of an ant’s body
are indigestible, which necessitates a huge stomach.
Eating more than two hundred ants per day means
exposure out in the open for long periods, and having a
‘heavy’ stomach means that a horned lizard finds it
difficult to run away from predators. Instead, it relies on
an armory of defences. It has camouflage colouring,
with an outline broken up by spines and outgrowths, and
it will freeze if a predator approaches. Its horns and
spines can pierce the throat of a snake or bird, and it
can hiss and blow itself up to look even more fearsome.
When it comes to coyotes, foxes, and dogs, a horned
lizard’s most spectacular defence is to squirt foul-tasting
blood from the sinuses behind its eyes. That usually has
the desired effect. But it squirts only when it is provoked,
since it risks losing up to one quarter of its blood. Such
abilities are, however, no defense against human
invasion of its land. Its strange shape and colouring has
made it attractive to reptile collectors, and its habit of
freezing means that it is prone to being run over.