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 The granite night lizard (''Xantusia henshawi'') is a species of xantusiid lizard endemic to North America."''Xantusia henshawi'' ". The Reptile Database. www.reptile-database.org. Etymology The specific name, ''henshawi'', is in honor of Amer ...

, ''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 a ...

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 f ...

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, ...

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