Ornate Tree Lizard

Urosaurus ornatus, commonly known as the ornate tree lizard, is a species of lizard in the family Phrynosomatidae. The species is native to the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico. The species, which was formerly called simply the "tree lizard", has been used to study physiological changes during the fight-or-flight response as related to stress and aggressive competition. Its life history and costs of reproduction have been documented in field populations in New Mexico and Arizona. This species has been fairly well studied because of its interesting variation in throat color in males (within a population) that can correlate with different reproductive strategies.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Urosaurus ornatus, by its authors, under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.