------ Reptile -------

Always a delight to see this species!

Here's the Zebra-Tailed Lizard page (photos, videos, text) from the wonderful 'CaliforniaHerps' web site. Based on the range map there and the far southeastern CA location here, this is subspecies Callisaurus draconoides rhodostictus. Another info resource is the taxon page on the 'The Reptile Database'...which has an extensive bibliography.

Fascinating Fact: These lizards have a 'third eye' on the top of their head! A good image is here. Many lizards and other (non-mammalian) taxa have such a light-sensing organ, it's relatively small and called a 'pineal' or 'parietal' eye...see this Wikipedia page. Two references on the subject are a 1970 journal article & a 1973 book (preview here) by R. M. Eakin, a highly-regarded UC Berkeley biology professor from that time. Web searches will bring up others.

------ Plants -------

Among the variously miniscule members of the desert garden seen in this photo are:

* the white-flowered composite Eriophyllum lanosum;

* the lavender-flowered polemone Langloisia setosissima ssp. setosissima;

* a non-native grass Schismus sp. (S. barbatus has more collection records in the area here than the other CA species, S. arabicus...but see Tom Chester's interesting page on difficulties separating these two species in the desert southwest, and also Richard Felger's discussion on pp. 64-66 here);

* the annual desert 'plantain' Plantago ovata...host plant for various lepidoptera;

* one of the 'desert pincushions' Chaenactis sp. (perhaps C. carphoclinia ?);

*... and last but not least ...the rather cryptic, diaphanous, and tiny-but-complex-flowered Nemacladus orientalis—of which many millions were present at this point in time & space ;-)