Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

The gen­eral dis­tri­b­u­tion of the Florida Scrub Lizard is re­stricted to Florida, specif­i­cally in Penin­su­lar Florida. It is dis­trib­uted in scat­tered sand pine and rose­mary srcub areas from Mar­ion and Put­nam coun­ties south­ward to Dade county (Carr 1959). The dis­tri­b­u­tion of the Scrub Lizard is highly dis­junct, prob­a­bly due to the patchy dis­tri­b­u­tion of suit­able habi­tat. Most can be found in the ex­ten­sive Sand Pine scrubs in the Ocala Na­tional For­est in north-cen­tral Florida. At­lantic coast pop­u­la­tions can still be found in Bre­vard, In­dian River, St. Lucie, Mar­tin, Palm Beach, and Broward Coun­ties. Pop­u­la­tions of Scrub Lizards along the south­west­ern Gulf Coast of Florida in Lee and Col­lier coun­ties may still exist (Moler 1992).

• Biogeographic Regions
• nearctic
  • native

Habi­tat

This "he­lio­ther­mic" lizard prefers open sandy areas bor­der­ing Sand Pine scrub and sand­hill as­so­ci­a­tions. Scelo­porus woodi could be de­scribed as a for­est-edge species. A dense crown of Sand Pine com­prises the 'over­story' of the scrub habi­tat. The 'un­der­story' is com­posed pri­mar­ily of scrub oaks (Quer­cus chap­manii , Q. myr­ti­fo­lia , and Q. vir­gini­ana) , while much of the ground is cov­ered with lichen and leaf lit­ter. Sand­hill habi­tats are dom­i­nated by Lon­gleaf Pine (Pinus palus­tris) and Turkey Oak (Q. lae­vis) . Wire­grasses are char­ac­ter­is­tic of this plant as­so­ci­a­tion. Rose­mary oc­curs in both types of habi­tats, es­pe­cially where fire is un­com­mon. Both plant as­so­ci­a­tions occur on well drained, deep sand soil (Moler 1992).

• Terrestrial Biomes
• chaparral
• scrub forest

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

Scelo­porous woodi is known by its rough, over­lap­ping scales, which usu­ally num­ber 40 or more from the oc­ciput to the base of the tail, and by its clear-cut dark lat­eral stripe. It also has fer­moral pores which num­ber from 14-20, and a brown­ish color, with a con­spic­u­ous dark band on the side from the neck to the base of the tail. On the back of the lizard is a se­ries of 8-10 more or less dis­tinct wavy bars. There is an un­marked mid-dor­sal area. These ver­ti­cal mark­ings are stronger in fe­males than in males. Males have a con­spic­u­ous blue patch bor­dered with black on each side of the throat, and a sim­i­lar blue area with a less heavy black bor­der on each side of the belly. Fe­males are gen­er­ally white on the ven­tral area ex­cept for weaker blue patches like those of males. Av­er­age Snout-Vent Length is about 1.75 inches (Carr 1959).

Re­pro­duc­tion

Fe­males reach sex­ual ma­tu­rity around 47mm SVL(snout-vent length). Male SVL is prob­a­bly slightly smaller at ma­tu­rity. Courtship and mat­ing occur from late March through June. For fe­males in their sec­ond re­pro­duc­tive sea­son, vitel­lo­ge­n­e­sis be­gins in March, and ovipo­si­tion of the first clutch oc­curs around mid-April. Smaller fe­males that are in their first re­pro­duc­tive sea­son may begin to de­velop fol­li­cles some­what later, in April or May. Fe­males that have not reached ma­tu­rity by March may ma­ture and yolk a clutch in mid- to late sum­mer. It has been es­ti­mated that the largest fe­males could lay up to five clutches in a sin­gle re­pro­duc­tive sea­son under op­ti­mal con­di­tions; how­ever three clutches in a sea­son is more likely. No fe­males are gravid after Au­gust. Av­er­age clutch size is four, and clutches range from 2-8 eggs. Hatch­ing oc­curs from late June until early No­vem­ber. Hatch­lings reach sex­ual ma­tu­rity in 10-11 months (Moler 1992).

Lifes­pan/Longevity

• Average lifespan
  Sex: male
  Status: captivity

  1.7 years

  Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

Be­hav­ior

The Scrub Lizard re­quires quite high tem­per­a­tures to reach the peak of their ac­tiv­ity, at which the males bob their heads very fre­quently, mov­ing them up and down with in­cred­i­ble speed. If a Scrub Lizard finds it­self "bobbed at" in this way, it can react in a va­ri­ety of ways. A weaker male will flee im­me­di­ately, but a fe­male usu­ally holds her ground. If the bob­bing male, seek­ing to mate, ap­proaches an un­re­cep­tive fe­male, she arches her back like a cat, dis­tends her body, and hops to the side with lit­tle jumps. A male threat­ens a rival by turn­ing broad­side and flat­ten­ing his body so as to pre­sent the great­est area and dis­play most promi­nently the glow­ing blue of the belly. When a human ap­proaches, the spiny lizard usu­ally re­mains mo­tion­less until the human comes within the "flight dis­tance" of the lizard; then it flees in an in­stant. Cap­tured an­i­mals de­fend them­selves by rais­ing their spiny scales. If a per­son seizes them awk­wardly, they are very likely to au­to­tomize, or lose, their tails (Grz­i­mak 1975).

Food Habits

The Florida Scrub Lizard is a "sit and wait" preda­tor that eats ants, bee­tles, spi­ders, and other small arthro­pods.

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

Be­cause this species con­sumes in­sects, spi­ders, etc. on a daily basis, it ef­fec­tively keeps the pop­u­la­tion of these small arthro­pods "in check."

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

An in­crease in ur­ban­iza­tion and con­ser­va­tion of scrub patches to cit­rus groves has re­sulted in a loss of habi­tat for species which must make their homes in scrub areas to sur­vive (Mosesso, 1996).

• IUCN Red List

  Near Threatened
  More information

• IUCN Red List

  Near Threatened
  More information

• US Federal List

  Threatened

• CITES

  No special status

Other Com­ments

Very lit­tle is known about the de­mog­ra­phy, life his­tory, ecol­ogy, and be­hav­ior of the Florida Scrub Lizard. There is ex­trao­d­i­nar­ily lit­tle pub­lished on the habits and life his­tory of this in­ter­est­ing species (Smith 1946). The large pop­u­la­tions of lizards found in the Ocala Na­tional For­est of­fers ex­cel­lent op­por­tu­ni­ties for re­search in these areas. Preser­va­tion of im­por­tant scrub habi­tats would serve to pro­tect a num­ber of scrub species in ad­di­tion to the Srcub Lizard. An im­me­di­ate ef­fort should be made to pre­vent the Gulf Coast pop­u­la­tion from going ex­tinct (Moler 1992).

Scelo­porus woodi has been re­ferred to by many com­mon names such as: the Pine Scrub Lizard, the Rose­mary Lizard, the Scrub Lizard, as well as the Florida Scrub Lizard.

Con­trib­u­tors

Anna Liza An­to­nio (au­thor), Cocoa Beach High School, Penny Mc­don­ald (ed­i­tor), Cocoa Beach High School.

Ref­er­ences

Carr, .., .. Goin. 1959. Rep­tiles, Am­phib­ians, and Fresh­wa­ter Fishes of Florida. Gainesville: Uni­ver­sity of Florida Press.

Cow­ley, .. 1997-2000. "NSiS: Florida Wildlife - Iguanids" (On-line). Ac­cessed "Feb­ru­ary 8, 2000" at http://​www.​nsis.​org/​wildlife/​rept/​liz-iguanid.​html.

Grz­imek, .. 1975. Grz­imek's An­i­mal Life En­cy­clo­pe­dia. New York: Van Nos­trand Rein­hold Com­pany.

Moler, .. 1992. Rare and En­dan­gered Biota of Florida (Vol.3). Gainesville: Uni­ver­sity of Florida Press.

Moss­eso, J., T. Har­low. 23 Oc­to­ber 1996. "Na­tional Bi­o­log­i­cal Ser­vice Funds Study of Rare Florida Lizard" (On-line). Ac­cessed March 5, 2000 at http://​biology.​usgs.​gov/​pr/​1995/​8-31a.​html.

Pope, .. 1960. The Rep­tile World. New York: Al­fred A. Knopf.

Scheper, J. 1997-1999. "The Florida Scrub - An­i­mal Gallery" (On-line). Ac­cessed March 1, 2000 at http://​www.​floridata.​com/​tracks/​scrub/​animals/​menu_​ani.​htm.

Smith, .. 1946. Hand­book of Lizards. New York: Com­stock Pub­lish­ing Com­pany.