Another Great Basin Whiptail made an appearance today, this time in my front yard.  These guys are extremely skittish (and fast!), so I had to go very slowly. Still, he let me get in pretty close!  As a reminder, clicking on any photo will bring up a larger version. You may want to do that with this series.

He skittered under a shrub, so I slowly made my way around.

He kept an eye on me as I moved in . . .

Here’s a shot of him blinking his eye. Their eyelids are transparent and close from bottom to top.  I highly recommend clicking on the photo to get a closer look. Better yet, click over to my Desert Creatures SmugMug gallery to see the original in all it’s reptilian glory.

Here’s a view of his full length. As I mentioned yesterday, their tails can be as long as 2/3 of their entire length.  His tail is nearly complete, but it appears there is some new growth at the end.  For scale, the leaf right behind his tail is nearly one inch long. This guy was about 7 inches or so.  Other scale info: the rabbit pellet just to the right of his forearm is about a quarter of an inch or so across.

One last close-up.

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