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Common side-blotched lizard

Uta stansburiana · Lizards · Reptiles

Common side-blotched lizard (Uta stansburiana): Dark blotch on each side of the chest just behind the forearm (less obvious in females); gular fold. Males lack stripes and have blue or orange patches (densest on the tail) and a blue, gray, red or orange throat; females are drab gray or brown with dorsolateral stripes. This profile does not establish whether taking it is legal anywhere.

Check rules for a place and date

Certified rules currently represented in Hunt: coverage in development. This is coverage, not a legal answer.

Common side-blotched lizard on red soil
Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash
Scientific name
Uta stansburiana
Family
Phrynosomatidae
In North America
Native
Range
Arid western North America: central Washington and eastern Oregon south through the Great Basin, Nevada, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico to western Texas, plus central and southern California (north to San Francisco), Baja California and islands off the Pacific and Gulf of California coasts. Not in Canada.
Biology

How to identify it

Dark blotch on each side of the chest just behind the forearm (less obvious in females); gular fold. [1][2]

Males lack stripes and have blue or orange patches (densest on the tail) and a blue, gray, red or orange throat; females are drab gray or brown with dorsolateral stripes. [1][2]

Scales along the middle of the back are uniform in size, and at least one scale on the top of the head behind the eyes is obviously larger than them. [1][2]

Maximum snout-vent length about 6.3 cm (2.5 in); juveniles are brown-gray like females. [1][2]

Field knowledge

Where it lives

Arid and semi-arid desert, often sagebrush or other scrub on sandy to gravelly soil, needing low-hanging shrub cover and bare ground; also roadsides, desert canyons and dunes. [1][2]

Field knowledge

How it behaves

Solitary, diurnal and crepuscular, most active in the morning and late afternoon; shelters in burrows or under shrubs and rocks in extreme heat, cold or rain. [1][2]

Sit-and-wait generalist predator eating ants, termites, beetles, grasshoppers, flies, spiders and scorpions, with large males also taking smaller lizards. [1][2]

Basks on rocks or low shrubs; breeding females stay near cover such as packrat nests. [1][2]

Regulatory handoff

Limited legal take

Legal take of this species exists only under narrow conditions — a quota, a draw, a permit, a small area, or animals released or held on private land — set by the authorities below. Nowhere else is a legal opportunity implied, and Hunt shows one only where a certified rule establishes it.

Where legal take is listed

Being listed is not an open season. Seasons, zones, licences, methods and limits decide whether this animal may be taken on a given day and place — check Hunt or the authority before you go. Listings read 2026-09-30.

Geospatial intelligence

Where it is found

Arid western North America: central Washington and eastern Oregon south through the Great Basin, Nevada, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico to western Texas, plus central and southern California (north to San Francisco), Baja California and islands off the Pacific and Gulf of California coasts. Not in Canada.

Biology

Sources

Every claim above is attributed to one of these published sources.

  1. NatureServe · reviewed 2026-09-30

    NatureServe

  2. University of Michigan Museum of Zoology · reviewed 2026-09-30

    University of Michigan Museum of Zoology