The sandstone night lizard (''Xantusia gracilis'') is a species of night lizard. Prior to 2005, it was considered a subspecies of the granite night lizard, ''Xantusia henshawi''. The physical difference is that the sandstone night lizard has lighter coloration.

Range

The sandstone night lizard is extremely limited geographically; it is known only to the Truckhaven Rocks in the

Colorado Desert California's Colorado Desert is a part of the larger Sonoran Desert. It encompasses approximately , including the heavily irrigated Coachella and Imperial valleys. It is home to many unique flora and fauna. Geography and geology The Colorado De ...

, at

Anza-Borrego Desert State Park Anza-Borrego Desert State Park (, '' AN-zə bə-RAY-goh'') is a California State Park located within the Colorado Desert of southern California, United States. The park takes its name from 18th century Spanish explorer Juan Bautista de Anza and ...

in eastern

San Diego County, California San Diego County (), officially the County of San Diego, is a county in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,298,634, making it California's second-most populous county and the fi ...

Description

The lizard is very secretive using small burrows and

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...

siltstone Siltstone, also known as aleurolite, is a clastic sedimentary rock that is composed mostly of silt. It is a form of mudrock with a low clay mineral content, which can be distinguished from shale by its lack of fissility.Blatt ''et al.'' 1980, p ...

for cover.

References

This article is based on a description from the website of California Wildlife Habitat Relationships System https://web.archive.org/web/20060805132729/http://www.dfg.ca.gov/whdab/html/reptiles.html Xantusia Endemic fauna of California Fauna of the Colorado Desert Natural history of San Diego County, California Reptiles described in 1986 Taxa named by Larry Lee Grismer {{lizard-stub