Uta

Side-blotched lizards are lizards of the genus Uta. They are some of the most abundant and commonly observed lizards in the deserts of western North America, known for cycling between three colorized breeding patterns and best described by the common side-blotched lizard. They commonly grow to 6 inches including the tail, with the males normally being the larger sex. Males often have bright throat colors.

Uta

Andrew Cattoir (Lake Mead National Recreation Area) · Public Domain · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
side-blotched lizardPBDB
Sits inside
IguanidaePBDB
Diet
omnivorePBDB, for Iguanidae
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Iguanidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota

Time the record covers

At most 1.4 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 1.4 Mya and 14 ka, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Pleistocene — about 3 of 3 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 3 occurrences1.5–1.4 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.4–1.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.3–1.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.3–1.2 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.2–1.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.1–1.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.1–1.0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.0–950 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences950 ka–887 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences887 ka–823 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences823 ka–760 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences760 ka–697 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences697 ka–633 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences633 ka–570 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences570 ka–507 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences507 ka–443 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences443 ka–380 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences380 ka–317 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences317 ka–253 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences253 ka–190 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences190 ka–127 ka Mya — about 0.6 occurrences127 ka–63 ka Mya — about 0.6 occurrences63 ka–0 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences1.9 Mya0 Mya

3 occurrences of Uta on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

3 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

2 formations

"unnamed sandstone" — 33.90°N, 117.00°WMontezuma — 37.99°N, 121.71°W

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The named rock units Uta has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Uta and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Uta and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

61 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Uta, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

3 references

Each of the 3 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Uta

Credit
Andrew Cattoir (Lake Mead National Recreation Area)
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No repository was searched for a 3D scan: the genus name is too short to search on without matching most of the record.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itIguanidae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Baird and Girard 1852