Hello everyone.

My name is Aaron and I just recently registered with NAFHA even though I've herped all my life. I live in Nevada, but I figured I'd start off with a bang and report a new species for Oregon; Phrynosoma hernadesi (greater short-horned lizard). My wife and I were working on a distribution and genetics study of short-horned lizards in the Great Basin and visted SE Oregon to investigate reports of short-horned lizards assumed to be pygmy short-horns based on range. However, all four specimens we encountered morphologically resembled greater-short horns (P. hernandesi) and later DNA sequencing proved them to be P. hernandesi. We notified Alan St. John who visited the site and found P. hernandesi as well. I think this just confirms everyones suspicion that the species occurs in Oregon.

Cheers,
Aaron

wow, that's one hell of a second post!!

Welcome Aaron!

Congratulations!
We are all looking forward to some photos! Maybe your post will help bring the forum back to life!

Casey Lazik

Couldn't get the photo attachment to upload, but here's the link to the submitted record: http://www.naherp.com/viewrecord.php?r_id=81885

Welcome aboard Aaron! That is a wicked cool find and post. Props for entering the information into NAHerp. The picture is excellent and obviously a hernadesi. The entire northern Great Basin area is an amazing place and I can't wait to read about the full distribution of short-horned lizards in the northern NV, southern OR and ID area in regards to douglasii or hernadesi I do got to say though that someone beat you by a couple of years on finding hernadesi in OR. I don't know how much of the previous record I am at liberty to discuss and hopefully Al will come on and chime in.

Yes,

Many of the spots we visited in Oregon were based on Al's suggestions. I know he had seen some photos from a BLM employee that he identified as hernandesi. I'm not claiming to have "discovered" the species in Oregon, but did immediately recognize the species when we found them and now have the genetics to support it. Hopefully people will take the time to document any they find as documentation has been a problem throughout the Great Basin. Interestingly, we found that 2 of the museum specimens that support the presence of hernandesi near Pyramid Lake, NV are actually adult platyrhinos; so definitely some revisions to be made on their distribution.

Cheers,
Aaron

Also, I should probably mention that my observation was from July 2009.

Cheers,
Aaron

Awesome post. Man it's been awhile since I've been on here, but when Josh told me about this post I had to check it out. We spoke with Al in the Alvord basin in 2009 and had we had more time we probably would have checked a few of those spots as well, but we believed at the time they could be found in Oregon, but it's great that someone "officially" documented them.

My nephew found some type of horned lizard a couple of hours east of Coquille, OR. on a mountain top we were on. As he was coming to show me, it escaped just as he found me and I only caught a glimpse before it went down a rock slide and disappeared. It was a horned lizard, but not sure what kind. It was pretty small compared to ones I've seen in Texas. About the size of a silver dollar.

Sounds like a pygmy short-horned lizard (Phrynosoma douglassi). Very cool.