So I know some have seen horny toads and some haven't, but have you ever seen one like this? Not many spikes at all just mainly on his head as you can tell from the pics.

I've seen a few on our lease and also ones that look normal.

Never seen one like that?

That's a Round-tailed, usually you find them in rocky area's. We have both Round Tails and Horned lizards on the ranch. There's another species they find around the Davis Mountains, very short horned.

Round tails have 4 spikes, Horned Lizards have 2 and the Short Horned has no spikes just stubs.

They are slowly making a comeback.

Thanks for the pics and the info!

That's a cool critter for sure. Love seeing them. I still think spraying for red ants in the 70's and 80's introduced both the fire ant and the decline of the horned lizard.

Albino ?

Nice

I’m 32 years old, live in central Texas and have never seen one :(my dad says they would play with them all the time as kids but that was yeeeeeeaaaaaaarrrrrrrrsssss ago

Haven’t seen one in years. Used to be abundant in S. Texas.

Natural color, works perfect for the limestone outcrops in this area. They're smaller than the Horned Lizard.

They were all around when I was a kid. Haven't see one in the wild in over 30years.

I grew up in Snyder and used to see them all the time growing up. We lived about 10 miles north of Snyder off of highway 208. The red ant theory is what I have always heard as well. We had plenty of Pogonomyrmex (Harvester ant genus) beds around my house and all throughout Scurry county. I live in Gatesville now, and I have seen one red ant bed, everything else is fire ants, never have seen a horned lizard in Gatesville. I also spent a lot of time stomping around looking for snakes, lizards, and what not when I was a kid. Don't spend much time doing that anymore, so that may have something to do with it as well. Awesome picture by the way.

I've seen exactly two horned toads on my place over the past 5 years. And yes, when I was a kid, we found and played with them frequently. As I understand it, they feed on harvester ants, and the harvester ants share a food source with fire ants. With the proliferation of fire ants over the past several decades, the food sources for harvester ants has been depleted, which means up the food chain, the horned toad populations have been decimated.

I read several years ago that there were tests underway to release a species of fly that actually lays eggs inside the brain of the fire ant, of course, killing it. The good news, that is the only way the fly reproduces, so once the fire ants are gone, the species of fly would quit reproducing. No idea if it has ever gone anywhere further.

and yes they can spit blood from the corner of their eye