WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE

Horny ? ToadBY CHAD LOVE

ALK OUTSIDE AND find some open space, maybe an undeveloped commercial lot or the still semi- Wwild periphery of the neighborhood. What’s there? Bugs, weeds, various and sundry creepy crawlies—the usual scrum of little-noticed life scratching out an existence on the very margins of human activity. But one thing even the most astute observer may not see is a small, slow, curious-looking creature resembling something out of another epoch. It’s been called a lizard, a frog, or a toad. Horned, horn, or horny. But by any name, the Texas horned lizard—better known around these parts as the horny toad—is the stuff of folk tales, regional pride, school mascots, and the memorable menagerie of countless Okie childhoods. And it is slowly disappearing from both the historic range it once occupied and the environmental conscience of a culture. Whatever happened to the horny toad? It’s a question Oklahomans have been asking as they look around and notice they seem to see less and less of the state’s popular little dinosaur.

48 September/October 2017 OklahomaToday.com 49 JJ RITCHEY THE HORNY TOAD IS CONSIDERED RARE AND LOCALIZED IN OKLAHOMA.

HE HORNY TOAD is, of course, not a lizards feed on, and the widespread use of her- dinosaur. Nor is it a toad, a frog, or any bicide has greatly reduced its number, impact- Tother type of amphibian—despite the ing horny toads’ ability to find food. squat, stout shape that gives it its popular name. So how bad is it for this unusual-looking Its proper name is Phrynosoma cornutum—the reptile? There’s good news and bad. Texas horned lizard—and it bears a remarkable “In Oklahoma, the Texas horned lizard is of- resemblance to a miniature Triceratops, with nu- ficially considered a species of special concern,” merous horns poking out of its Jurassic-looking says Howery. “Currently, it’s not threatened, and head and along its body. it’s not endangered in Oklahoma. But it has Historically, the horny toad ranged from a year-round closed season, which means it is the south-central United States—primarily unlawful for a person to kill, capture, or possess parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, horned lizards without prior authorization— and New Mexico—and down into north- mostly for research.” ern Mexico. It is a creature of the flat, open, In all, the horny toad has disappeared from semi-arid southern plains and Southwest. around seven or eight counties on the eastern To thrive in this habitat, it needs two things: periphery of its range and now is considered unfragmented habitat and ants. Lots of ants. rare and localized in Oklahoma. The bulk of the horned lizard’s diet consists of “We have very little true prairie left in seed-eating ants, and therein lies a big piece of central Oklahoma, and what remains tends to the puzzle of its decline. be concentrated in sandy soils and stabilized Mark Howery is a biologist with the sand dunes along rivers,” says Howery. “And OKLAHOMA DEPARTMENT OF WILDLIFE CONSERVATION OKLAHOMA DEPARTMENT Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conserva- that’s where we tend to find most of our rem- tion’s Wildlife Diversity Program. He’s also nant lizard populations in central Oklahoma: a big fan of the horned lizard. According to pockets here and there along railroads and in How To him, the horny toad’s decline largely can be empty lots. But this area is becoming more traced to the continued loss of the prairie heavily developed every day, so their long-term Help that once covered most of central and western prognosis in the Oklahoma City metro area is Oklahoma, which has declined by at least 60 not very good.” Donate to Research percent over seventy years. The good news is that in the western third of and Conservation “Especially in central Oklahoma, a lot of our the state, the Texas horned lizard is doing okay. Since the bulk of the funding native grasslands have either been developed “It’s still fairly widespread and common,” says and focus of the Oklahoma De- or converted to cropland or non-native pasture Howery. “Where there’s habitat, you tend to partment of Wildlife Conserva- like Bermuda grass or fescue,” says Howery. find lizards, but as you move eastward across the tion is on game species, there’s “So we have very little true prairie with native state, it’s been extirpated from a lot of its range not much funding for non-game warm-season bunch grasses and broadleaf primarily due to habitat loss.” species research and conserva- forbs in central Oklahoma.” Horned lizards, it turns out, are not good dis- tion efforts. One way residents But habitat loss isn’t the only culprit. Seed- persers. They can’t travel long distances to estab- can help is by donating through producing native grasses and plants are the lish new populations, so if they aren’t in a location the wildlife license plate primary food base for the ants so vital to the to begin with, or they’ve disappeared, chances program. Funding from all nine horned lizard’s diet, and these grasses have de- ODWC wildlife plates supports Horny toads’ spines serve a defensive purpose, clined across the state. The once-ubiquitous red as they make it difficult for predators to see and the Wildlife Diversity Fund. harvester ant—fabled ruiner of many an Okie swallow them. The lizards also are famous for picnic—is the primary species that horned shooting blood from sinuses behind their eyes. OF WILDLIFE CONSERVATION OKLHOMA DEPARTMENT

50 September/October 2017 OklahomaToday.com 51 How To Help Lose the Herbicide: “Broadleaf plants and forbs are the food base for the harvester ant,” says Mark Howery. “Horned lizards can survive without red harvester ants, but they do have to have ants of some kind. If people have horned lizards, doing things like leaving red harvester ants alone, not applying blanket herbicides for broadleaf plants, and leaving in place those broadleaf plants to the greatest extent possible will help the lizards a lot.” JAMES PRATT

About 20 acres of LUKAS GOJDA/SHUTTERSTOCK Tinker Air Force Base are they’re gone for good in that area. Which of the most comprehensive and long-lived stud- but today, there are about fifty-four adult horny is to find ways to make sure horny toads can in Midwest City are set makes the very existence of central Oklahoma’s ies of the Texas horned lizard ever conducted. toads living at Tinker. survive relocation. To that end, the base is part- aside as a preserve for most unlikely yet most well-known population of “We thought we had a few horned lizards out Some of the findings from the Tinker study nering with the Oklahoma City Zoo to create wildlife—including the horny toad population. horny toads all the more remarkable. there,” says Ray Moody, a natural resource sci- are shedding new light on how the lizards react ways to move hatchling horned lizards into new entist at the base who has coordinated the study to habitat loss and relocation and how best to areas to see if they’d do better than adults. from the beginning. “But we didn’t know much protect and conserve them. One new finding: “They’re about the size of your thumbnail, beyond that, so Williams provided a mitigation Horny toads are homebodies who don’t do well so you can’t put a heavy transmitter on them,” OURTEEN YEARS AGO, Williams fund to assist with the first year of research. We when moved to another range. says Moody. “So for the last three years, we’ve Natural Gas employees working on a ended up buying some little backpacks and trans- “We took seventeen lizards from one habitat mounted electronic diodes with harmonic F gas pipeline at Tinker Air Force Base in mitters so we could track them to see what they area on base into another,” says Moody. “We radar technology that uses a tiny reflective Midwest City came across a population of Texas were doing here and how we could help them.” moved them in July, and by fall, when they patch on the young to relay their location. horned lizards happily carrying on amid the When the study began in 2003, the twenty- went into hibernation, we only had three left.” Last year, we tracked more than seventy of the roar of the airplanes, blissfully unaware that they acre core research area had a population of Researchers found that the lizards had to little guys.” weren’t at all supposed to be there. The disruption fifty-two horny toads. When a housing devel- move around a lot more to find food and cover, A female horned lizard will have an average of the lizards’ habitat was an inauspicious begin- opment on base led to a loss of habitat nearly a which made them more vulnerable to predators. of seventeen to nineteen young in one clutch, ning for what, over the years, has turned into one decade later, the number dropped to seventeen, Now, says Moody, one of the study’s objectives and since the Tinker researchers have been able

52 September/October 2017 OklahomaToday.com 53 JAMES PRATT

How To Help Control household predators: It’s estimated that the number of songbirds killed by free- roaming cats each year is in the millions, and while this is a contentious and controver- sial issue, there is no denying that free-roaming cats have an impact on small animal populations. Horned lizards are not particularly fast creatures, and as such, they are easy targets for outdoor-roaming pet as well as feral cats. If you have horned lizards on your

JAMES PRATT property or in your area, keep your cats inside. How To Help Take a picture; it’ll last longer

“Horned lizards make terrible JAMES PRATT pets,” says Howery. “They need a diversity of insects, including Researchers use silicon and elastic collars with to tag them, they’ve been learning some new transmitters to track Tinker Air Force Base’s horny ANDREY KUZMIN/SHUTTERSTOCK ants. They will not thrive just and interesting things. toad population. The technology they employ was eating mealworms and crickets. “We’ve found that when it gets really hot, developed in Sweden to locate avalanche victims. They don’t live long under the hatchlings will use cracks in the clay soil to best of circumstances—maybe get out of the heat and escape predators,” says lizards are active and can move or go under- five years. And it’s illegal in Moody. “We also observed them clustering ground to escape the fire,” Moody says. every state in which the horned together in late fall and winter. Adults will The next step for the Tinker study is to learn lizard lives to keep one as a burrow into the ground, but we found that more about horny toad re-introduction efforts. pet. There should be no Texas hatchlings won’t. They’ll lie right on the surface, “Right now, we have a female laying eggs at horned lizards anywhere in clustered together and sometimes stacked on the Oklahoma City Zoo,” says Moody. “Those captivity unless it’s being done top of each other, and on warm days, they hatchlings will be the first group in a trial to for research and is properly might actually move around a bit.” see if we can successfully re-introduce young permitted.” Bottom line? If you Oklahoma City Zoo team members Moody says the implications of these ob- horned lizards into the wild.” see a horned lizard in the wild, Josiah Parrish and Ellyn Willse servations go well beyond how to conserve the As part of the research, the zoo will keep check the markings on a horny enjoy the experience, take a Tinker lizards. Some of the new discoveries are hatchlings for eight to nine months before picture, marvel at its unique- toad at Tinker Air Force Base before weighing it. directly applicable to larger conservation efforts. releasing them at Tinker. ness, and then leave it alone. “If you’re doing a prescribed burn, it might “It’s a challenge to keep them in captivity, be better to do it in warmer months when the even with what we’re doing here,” says Stacey

54 September/October 2017 OklahomaToday.com 55 “IF WE CAN SAVE THE HORNED LIZARDS, IT’S ALMOST

LIKE SAVING AN IMPORTANT PART OF OUR CHILDHOOD.”

Sekscienski, the zoo’s curator of herpetology. toward them because of their docile nature “We’re going to offer about six different types and their unique appearance, and it’s almost of food items to these hatchlings to make sure as if they think, ‘If we can save the horned liz- they’re getting well-rounded nutrition.” ards, it’s almost like saving an important part Though the Oklahoma City Zoo currently of our childhood.’” has no horny toads in any of its exhibits, There is a term scientists use to describe the zoologists there are excited to help the spe- loss of collective ecological and environmental cies while educating Oklahomans about this memory. The condition is called—somewhat

much-loved reptile. clinically for such a heartbreaking concept— CHRUPKA/SHUTTERSTOCK “We love talking about horned lizards,” “shifting baselines syndrome,” and it describes says Sekscienski. “This research is a great way the process by which each generation defines to connect our visitors with something they what is normal based on its own experiences How To remember when they were kids. We get a great rather than historical data. Therefore, when response from our visitors during events like something fairly common—an animal, a plant, endangered species day, when we spotlight the an entire biome—gradually becomes scarce, Help research we’re doing with Tinker. That’s when the pale ghost becomes the new normal as the we hear a lot of people saying they don’t see baseline of collective memory shifts. Restore pasture to horned lizards anymore.” It remains to be seen how the horny toad’s native grasses: shifting baseline will affect the species. As If you are a landowner wanting increased development, use of herbicide and to help out horned lizards, con- insecticide, and invasive species continue verting Bermuda and fescue EARLY ANYONE WHO was raised in apace in central Oklahoma, a decline in Okies’ pasture back to warm-season central or western Oklahoma seems awareness is likely to follow. So perhaps the grasses, as well as converting N to have a memory of catching horny best way to combat threats both tangible and from species like old world toads. And many people seem unable to recall intangible is to get outside and re-engage with bluestem to native grasses and the last time they actually saw one. the curiosity and wonder that accompanies forbs, will help. This disconnect between past memory and every horny toad sighting. As long as people present mystery is what spurred Canute native still care about the horny toad—and plenty, it and filmmaker Stefanie Leland to go in search seems, still do—the scaly, spiny, unique little of the answer. Her 2012 documentary, Where icon still has a chance. Did the Horny Toad Go?, began while remi- niscing with friends. If you see a Texas horned lizard in the wild, the Okla- “I decided to make the film because I was homa Department of Wildlife Conservation wants to talking to some friends about horned lizards, know about it in order to better understand the species’ and I realized I hadn’t seen one since I was a distribution and frequency in Oklahoma. To report a child,” Leland says. “People have an affection horned lizard sighting and help contribute to ongoing science, go to the Wildlife Diversity Program’s Citizen During the first year of the Tinker study, horny Science Program page, click on the “Report Texas toads wore tiny backpacks carrying their Horned Lizard Sightings” tab, and follow the in- tracking diodes. The backpacks were made from structions. wildlifedepartment.com. The ODWC will lightweight burlap by OSU graduate student Joe Hackler’s grandmother. Now, tracking diodes are host a Wildlife Expo featuring a horny toad exhibit glued to horny toads’ backs and are helpful when at the Lazy E Arena in Guthrie September 23-24. researchers weigh the lizards. 9600 Lazy E Drive, (405) 282-3004 or lazye.com.

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