Horned Lizard Habitat Mix

Horned Lizards are a pocket-sized piece of the vanishing prairie. As the State Reptile of Texas and the historic first animal sent back east by Lewis & Clark, “Horny Toads” are an approachable, living symbol of wild America on the Great Plains. Horned Lizards mainly eat seed-collecting Harvester Ants and other social insects. Planting diverse seed-producing native wildflowers and grasses will sustain Harvester Ants, and in turn feed the lizards!

Bunch grasses and wildflowers make space for the micro-trails of bare ground that allow the lizards to camouflage against the soil, bask in the sun, and forage for prey. Your helping to restore habitat for this beloved and charismatic reptile is one important step towards ensuring its future.

Plains Horned Lizards currently live in the western half of Texas (west of the I-35 corridor), Oklahoma, Kansas, eastern & southern New Mexico, extreme southeastern Arizona, and southeastern Colorado, but historically they occurred throughout those areas and most of Texas (except the deepest areas of the Piney Woods); Horned Lizard Habitat Mix is appropriate for these regions.

Check out this feature on CBS Texas' Climate Connection program:

Check out this feature on CBS Texas' Climate Connection program.

Horned Lizard Habitat Mix takes to heart the doctrine of native plants and applies it to something new. Horned Lizard Habitat Mix is groundbreaking because, to our knowledge, it is the first commercially available native plant seed mix developed for the benefit of a reptile.

Millions of Americans remember playing with "Horny Toads" in bygone decades. That's because Horned Lizards are among the last inhabitants of the prairie that managed to hold on. As the prairie was first de-buffaloed, de-prairie dogged, de-wolfed, and eventually de-grassed of its natives, only the smaller species that have clung to the scantiest patches of degraded prairie remained. Horny Toads, and the prairie Harvester Ants they ate for food, are among these—but, without your help, they too eventually could succumb.

First retreating from the tallgrass prairie of the Southern Great Plains, but eventually also in the midgrass prairie, their populations have continuously receded westward. This alarmed many plains folk, and in 1967 the Texas Horned Lizard was designated a threatened species by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. The State of Oklahoma followed suit, granting Horny Toads some protection. In 1993, the Texas House and Senate adopted a resolution to officially designate the Texas Horned Lizard as the State Reptile of Texas. And while such designations and resolutions bring public awareness to the plight of Horny Toads, they are only a beginning.

What can be done to help Horny Toads? 

The first step is restoring the native plants and natural processes that made the Horned Lizard's prairie home. And because so much land in the Southern Great Plains is privately owned and managed, it's going to take everyone's help. And that's the exciting part. YOU get to help bring the Horned Lizard back to its native home by planting the seeds it needs to restore its habitat and food web! Plant Horned Lizard Habitat Mix on ranches, ranges, alleyways, turnrows, schoolyards, church yards, front yards, and back yards. Every little corner of restored habitat can one day welcome a grateful Horned Lizard and help make him/her thrive! It takes a while to restore something that was lost—so we might as well roll up our sleeves and make ready the Horny Toad's homecoming. 

Horned Lizards need a mosaic of grassland habitat types.

Horny Toads need some shortgrass areas, with some bare soil in between plants to bask and forage in the sun. (Restoring prairie dogs, prescribed burns, and rotationally grazing bovines with long rest periods for the bunchgrasses can help here!) They also need some ungrazed, unburned, unmown tallgrasses or native "weedy" areas nearby to escape midday heat and hide from hungry predators. Even a tree or mott, about as far as a softball throw away but generally no denser, is an additional welcome shade structure in a Horny Toad's grassland. 

Check out this video from Texas Wildlife Association and Dr. Dale Rollins to understand the link between the habitat needs of Horned Lizards and that of other prairie species—like Bobwhite Quail—that have also disappeared or dwindled in number in recent decades:

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Horned Lizard Habitat Mix is a native plant EcoSystem in a Bag™ seed mix of species and ecotypes of cool-season and warm-season native wildflower and prairie grass species of the Southern Great Plains, so you can plant in either spring or fall. Many of the native grass species in the mix will germinate in the warm season while a good deal of the 43 wildflowers will germinate in the cool season. Plains Horned Lizards currently live in the western half of Texas (west of the I-35 corridor), Oklahoma, Kansas, eastern & southern New Mexico, extreme southeastern Arizona, and southeastern Colorado, but historically they occurred throughout those areas and most of Texas (except the deepest recesses of the Piney Woods); Horned Lizard Habitat Mix is appropriate for these regions. (See also How To Grow Native Seeds)