notes Found at mid-morning in sandy desert scrub habitat. I initially misplaced this as the ''Southern Desert Horned Lizard'' (Phrynosoma platyrhinos calidiarum)...but Alice Abela corrected my error, noting this appears to be a Coast Horned Lizard (Phrynosoma blainvillii). The vast majority of the ranges of these two species are disjunct, with the former being transmontane and the latter cismontane. But the locality here is in the relatively small area of overlap for the two species...at the far eastern edge of the range for the Coast Horned Lizard.
According to the bottom of this CaliforniaHerps web page, P. blainvillii has 2 or 3 rows of enlarged pointed scales under each side of the throat; whereas P. platyrhinos has only a single row below each edge of the mouth. The full-size image here seems to indicate at least one more row of enlarged pointed scales under the throat beyond those along the edge...which indicates P. blainvillii.
Alice also noted 'the scales on the side, back, and legs, as well as the robustness of the horns, and the stockiness of the legs all indicate blainvillii. The scales on platyrhinos will be much more petite, the horns thinner, and the legs longer.'
