Archives of The Cold Blooded News

The Newsletter of the Colorado Herpetological Society

Volume 32, Number 9;   September, 2005

Uta stansburiana, Baird and Girard, 1852 - Common Side-blotched Lizard

Edward O. Moll

School of Natural Resources
University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, 85721

Both the genus and species of this lilliputian lizard were described by Spencer Baird and Charles Girard in 1852, based on four specimens collected by an expedition exploring and surveying the valley of the Great Salt Lake of Utah in 1850. Baird and Girard (1852) provided the specific epithet, stansburiana, in honor of Captain Howard Stansbury of the U.S. Corps of Topographical Engineers, the leader of the survey and the man listed as the collector of the specimens. Based on the only known photograph, however, Stansbury looks a little portly, and possibly a tad slow, to have been catching lizards. Nevertheless, his name is on the labels, so who am I to question history? For all I know he may well have used a 12' cane pole with a noose of fishing line on the end to accomplish the feat. If so, he failed to mention it in his final report of the expedition. The genus was presumably named after the territory of Utah (which became a state in 1896) or the principal tribe of American Indians inhabiting that region, the Uta or Ute. Baird and Girard never specified the derivation of the name choice in their discussion within the Reptiles section of the final expedition report. The common name, Side-blotched Lizard (now Common Side-blotch Lizard), refers to a small dark blotch located on each side of the lizard just posterior to the axilla (or in layman terms, the armpit).

Before reviewing the biology of this animal, I want to present a quick discourse on the etymology and pronunciation of the generic name. I did my doctoral work at the University of Utah and here the herpetologically inclined pronounced Uta with a long U like the state. Decades later, when my wife and I settled in Tucson and I began attending Tucson Herpetological Society meetings, I frequently heard the name "oota" being bantered about. However, I believe the long U pronunciation used by Arizona's northern neighbors to be correct. Utah, itself, is a corruption of the name of the aforementioned tribe of American Indians that ranged through Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico. According to writings of the early Mormons and Spaniards, they pronounced their tribal name as Eutaw, Youtah, Yuta, or Yutah. Today they are known as the Ute. So whether the lizard was named after the Ute or after Utah, it should be pronounced with the long U.

Not only does this lizard vie for being the most common lizard in Western U.S., it is also one of the best studied. One of the most thorough investigations of the natural history of the Common Side-blotched Lizard was that of the late Don Tinkle (1967), who made nearly 13,000 captures of 3,729 lizards and examined several thousand more, chiefly from Kermit, Texas, but also Colorado and Nevada. Based on Tinkle's findings, in Texas these insectivorous lizards lay at least three clutches of four eggs each. Average incubation time is two months and hatchlings began to appear in mid June. They grow at a rate of 0.2 mm (0.008 in) per day during warm months but slow to half that rate in cooler months. Rapid growth continues until sexual maturity (between 4 and 8 months) at which time growth greatly slows or ceases. Mortality of hatchlings and adults is high. Survivorship of hatchlings to maturity is typically less than 20% and the turn-over of resident adults approaches 90% annually. Rare individuals approach the ripe old age of two years, but average life expectancy is around 19 weeks. Practically the entire breeding population each year is composed of animals less than a year of age.

Small lizards with high mortality, such as Uta, are in many respects reptilian equivalents of annual plants. Due to high mortality their chances of surviving beyond a year are slim. Thus only the genes of those producing eggs that hatched into individuals, that grew, matured, mated and produced eggs within the confines of a single annum survived to staff present day populations.

An interesting analysis of male reproductive behavior in a population studied by the Barty Sinervo lab from the University of California Santa Cruz (Sinervo and Lively 1996) suggests that these lizards are practitioners of a complex game of rock-paper-scissors. Males come in three color/behavioral types. Orange-throated males are particularly aggressive and territorial. Blue-throated males are territorial, less aggressive, but guard their mates. Yellow-throated males defend no territory but thrive as female impersonators, sneaking liaisons with real females by slipping into the territories of the other two types. Each strategy has strengths allowing it to out-contest one morph but also weaknesses that leave it susceptible to another. Orange throats hold large territories but can be cuckolded by the yellow-throated sexual impersonators. Blue throats have smaller territories but avoid cuckolding by closely guarding their females from yellow throats. They in turn are overpowered by the more aggressive orange-throats. All types are successful enough to remain moderately abundant in the population.

The collection of the first specimens of Uta stansburiana is also a story of the Great Salt Lake Expedition and the Corps of Topographical Engineers. In a historical article it is always difficult to decide where to begin, inasmuch as the history of anything is a network of links with the past. Thus historians must draw the line somewhere, and rather than go all the way back to the 'Big Bang', I choose to begin the story of the Great Salt Lake Expedition in the year 1777. This was the year when General George Washington paved the way for the Corps by appointing Robert Erskine of New Jersey as the geographer/surveyer for the revolutionary army.

This was significant as it paved the way for creation of the topographical division of the military established during the war of 1812. An early appointment to the division was John James Abert, the man destined to be its chief from 1829 to 1861. The division was reorganized and took the name, U. S. Corps of Topographical Engineers, in 1838. Under Abert the Corps endeavored to be scientifically oriented, requiring that engineers be both proficient military commanders and have the scientific skills necessary to report on the flora, fauna, and geology of the regions that they were sent to survey.

In the 1840s, spurred by the hue and cry of 'Manifest Destiny', the Corps began dispatching expeditions to explore western United States. According to historian Brigham Madsen, expansionists of the day were clamoring to see the stars and stripes flying from the Aurora Borealis in the North to Tierra del Fuego in the South. The West was first on the agenda to be explored and conquered. Thomas Jefferson had set the precedent for federally sponsored exploration of the American West with the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1803. The Topographical Engineers now took over the mission to map and survey this great expanse. The first major western expedition by the U. S. Army Topographical Engineers was in 1819 when Lt. Stephen Long led a party to the foot of the Rocky Mountains. Particularly well known were the expeditions led by John C. Fremont. It was Fremont's expeditions to South Pass in 1842 and to Oregon and California in 1843 and 1844 that paved the way for the later Stansbury expedition by furnishing essential information about the routes through and the geography of the Utah territory. Other Western exploration was undertaken by First Lieutenant William Emory, the topographer who accompanied General Stephen Kearney's Army of the West and supplied extensive new information in his report about the region between the Rio Grande and California. This was followed in 1849 by a report of Navaho country by topographer Lieutenant James Simpson who accompanied the well-publicized expedition to chastise the natives. Next on the Corps docket was the Great Salt Lake Expedition under the leadership by Captain Howard Stansbury.

Stansbury was born February 8, 1806 in New York. A civil engineer by profession, in 1828 he was put in charge of surveying a large project of proposed canals to unite Lakes Erie and Michigan with the Wabash River. Other projects preceding his military career involved surveys of rivers, railroads, and roads in the Midwest. In July of 1838, Stansbury became a Lieutenant in the U.S. Corps of Topographical Engineers. His credentials must have been particularly impressive because Abert typically insisted on West Point graduates for his Corps. John C. Fremont was the only other non-West Point appointment of the time. Despite this handicap, Stansbury moved quickly up the ladder and was promoted to Captain in 1840.

Over the next decade, he was put in charge of a variety of projects ranging from surveys of the Great Lakes and the harbor at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to building an iron lighthouse on Carysfort Reefin Florida. However, it was the Great Salt Lake Expedi.tion from 1849 to 1851 that made his place in history. The exploration of the Great Salt Lake carried with it much of the same glamour and excitement to the American public that John Wesley Powell's exploration of the Colorado River commanded a decade or so later. Here in the midst of an arid region lay the largest body of water between the Great Lakes and the Pacific Ocean, a huge body of water that apparently had no outlet.

Minimal exploration had been carried out prior to the Stansbury expedition. Dominguez and Escalante were in the area around 1776 and made a map indicating that the lake drained by a river into the Pacific Ocean. This idea was eventually dispelled by a group of four trappers who explored the lake in 1826. Nevertheless, John C. Fremont's expedition in 1843 searched once again for a river draining the lake only to confirm that there was no drainage to the sea. Brigham Young led a party of Mormons to the lake in 1847 and shortly thereafter established salt collection from it for the settlers.

Stansbury's primary assignment was to survey the Great Salt Lake, explore the surrounding region, and determine the ability of the Mormons to supply army bases in the region. In addition he was to seek a better wagon road to Ft. Bridger from Salt Lake City and look over the country as a potential route for the transcontinental railroad.

Second in command of the group was First Lt. John W. Gunnison, a West Point graduate. The expedition, which left Fort Leavenworth on May 31, 1849, got off to a rocky start. Gunnison began the trip in the back of a wagon recovering from illness (presumably cholera that was raging in the region). California gold fever, a sickness of a different nature, caused many of the party to jump ship and join forty-niners heading for the "Diggings." Upon the expedition's arrival in Salt Lake City, the Mormons were reluctant to cooperate as they feared that the soldiers were there to spy on them and possibly to deliver punishment on the society for their stand on polygamy. Fortunately, Stansbury was an outstanding diplomat who soon gained the confidence of Brigham Young and the cooperation of the Mormon people. Most of the objectives of the project were accomplished, and Stansbury and his men became the first to successfully encircle the entire lake. By the end of the project both Stansbury and Gunnison came to have strong admiration for the Mormons, which was reflected in the final report.

The expedition achieved a number of scientific accomplishments. Stansbury was first to recognize that the Great Salt Lake was a relatively small remnant of a former vast inland sea. The system of triangulation used by the expedition to map the Lake was the first application of the method by the Corps of Topographical Engineers. It became the system of choice by not only the Topographical Engineers but also the U. S. Geographical and Geological Surveys that succeeded the Corps. The transcontinental railroad route recommended by Stansbury was ultimately the route chosen. The natural history specimens collected by the expedition were reported by Spencer Baird to be the most important additions to the field since the 1831 expedition of Major Long.

In regard to the herps (a Tiger Salamander was included in the reptile report), Baird stated that all but two of the eleven were new to science. However, over time, only four of the species escaped the indignity of synonomy - Aspidoscelis tigris, Phrynosoma platyrhinos, Sceloporus graciosus, and Uta stansburiana. Another, Coluber mormon, still exists as a valid subspecies, C. constrictor mormon. Interestingly, in addition to Baird and Girard's report on Reptiles, the final report of the expedition includes "A Monographic Essay on the Genus Phrynosoma" by Girard. It was not unusual for the Smithsonian staff to take advantage of a government-funded publication by including extraneous material that could not be published elsewhere.

Following the expedition, the principals did not live long and fruitful lives. Stansbury's final report appeared as a congressional document in 1852. His descriptions of the Mormons and how they lived made the publication particularly popular and led to a number of reprintings over the years. This report stands today as an important historical and cultural work documenting settlement of the Great Salt Lake and the role of the Corps of Topographical Engineers in its exploration. Stansbury survived a little over a decade after completing his report. A note on the back of his photograph suggests that he picked up some disease in the Rocky Mountains that led to deterioration of his health and eventually his death. Nevertheless, he continued engineering work in the Midwest, was appointed Major in 1861, and was serving as a mustering officer in Madison, Wisconsin at the time of his death in 1863. His second-in-command Gunnison returned to Utah in 1853 leading a survey party for the Transcontinental Railroad. His party was attacked by Indians in the vicinity of Sevier Lake and Gunnison and six others were killed and dismembered. The names of Stansbury and Gunnison are perpetuated in the region they explored by a number of landmarks. They made sure of some recognition by naming islands in the Lake after themselves. But they need not have worried. Today Gunnison is also remembered by a town and a reservoir in Utah as well as a county, a town and a river in Colorado, whereas Stansbury's name is attached to an Ice Age terrace of Lake Bonneville and a range of mountains. However, only Stansbury will go down in the annals of herpetological history being the namesake of the West's ubiquitous, little, side-blotched, game-playing saurian, Uta stansburiana.

Sources
Baird, S., and C. Girard. 1852. Appendix C, Reptiles. Pp. 336-355 in H. Stansbury, Exploration and Survey of the valley of the Great Salt Lake of Utah. Lippincott, Grambo & Co. Philadelphia.
Madsen, B. 1989. Exploring the Great Salt Lake, the Stansbury expedition of 1849-50. Univ. of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.
Stansbury, H. 1988 (reprint). Exploration of the Great Salt Lake, Exploring the American West, with an introduction by Don O. Fowler. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, O. C.
Sinervo, B., and C. M. Lively. 1996. The rock-paper-scissors game and the evolution of alternative male strategies. Nature 388: 240-243.
Tinkle, O. W. 1967. The life and demography of the Side-blotched Lizard, Uta stansburiana. Miscellaneous Publications, Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan. (132):1-182.