joesjoes20's Journal

I'm not an expert educationally speaking, so if you're reading this and would like to add your thoughts, please do. This is mostly a journal entry for myself to reflect back on, but I appreciate other opinions.

I've looked at quite a few fence lizard pictures taken around California. I believe longipes in the mountainous areas from around Santa Clarita down to San Diego are a new subspecies. This proposed subspecies has a pair of dark or black stripes on either side of the back similar to that of Coast Range Fence Lizards (boucourtii). This differs from longipes east of the Sierras as their dark stripes are replaced by a continuation of the pattern down the middle of the back.
Here are a couple great observations that really capture that difference:
San Diego County: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/149354822
Mono County: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/86083357

So what makes this proposed new subspecies different from bocourtii?

• bocourtii adult females have little to no blue on the throat. If they do have any, it's a pair of small faint spots. The proposed ssp female has one large blue splotch at the bottom of the throat.
• The proposed subspecies is phenotypically darker in color especially on the underside. Bocourtii start with stark white on the underside and the other is more of a tan. Males of both ssp get darker as they age, but bocourtii keep much more of the white on the belly than this proposed ssp.

Interesting thing I want to add:
There is a locality around San Bernadino that has striping similar to that of a southwestern fence lizard. While it doesn't seem to be all individuals in the area, I've only seen this clean striping on observations in that specific area: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/146111127

Sidenote: EDIT(Changed from Tranverse Range Fence Lizard to Baja Fence Lizard): If there's ever a chance I could have an influence on the name for the subspecies, I would call them Baja Fence Lizard (Sceloporus occidentalis scopulosus).

Addition 3/13/24
Found an article from 2022 talking about the diversity of Sceloporus occidentalis that seems to match up with my hunch here:
Pereira, R. J., & Singhal, S. (2022). A lizard with two tales: What diversification within Sceloporus occidentalis teaches us about species formation. Molecular Ecology, 31, 407–410. https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.16321

Figure one shows a map that implicates that the fence lizards found in SoCal are genetically distinct. I had a feeling the range didn't go farther north than Pine Mountain and I'm excited to see someone else came to the same conclusion too.