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Closeup of a California Legless Lizard, in this
case one of the newly described species from the San Joaquin Valley (Anniella grinnelli). Photo by James
Parham.
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I first learned about Tejon Ranch in the context of being an important site for early California naturalists (such as John Xántus, See blog post here) and a still large, contiguous, undeveloped property within our beautiful, but crowded, state. At that time, access to Tejon Ranch was limited, which added to mystery to its appeal. For all of these reasons, I consider myself fortunate to be starting (since last year) a research project on Tejon Ranch to study the distribution of California Legless Lizards.
Legless lizards are slow-moving, worm-like reptiles that are
rarely encountered by people. In fact, I know many field herpetologists in
California have never seen a legless lizard in nature. This is because, unlike
other lizards in California, legless lizards are fossorial (burrowing).
Therefore, you either have to be lucky, or else actively search for them in
order to find one. Perhaps because they are relatively hard to find, they
remain one of the more poorly studied reptiles in North America.
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Example of a California Legless Lizard, in this
case one of the newly described species from the San Joaquin Valley (Anniella grinnelli). Photo by Alex
Krohn.
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The story of my involvement with studying legless lizards
started in 2000, when I collaborated with Ted Papenfuss of the Museum of
Vertebrate Zoology, UC Berkeley, to study their genetics. At that time, the
California legless lizard was a single wide-ranging species (Anniella pulchra), known from south of
the Sacramento River Delta to Baja California. With another species, the Baja
California Legless Lizard (Anniella
geronimensis) restricted to sand dunes in Baja California.
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The known distribution of Anniella species prior to
the description of four new species in 2013.
Source: IUCN Red List.
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At that time, studies of the genetics and morphology of other
Californian small vertebrates were showing that species as wide ranging as Anniella pulchra were actually made up
of multiple species. Because California Legless Lizards are fossorial it means
they are restricted to certain habitats (e.g., sandy soils, leaf litter), it
seemed highly likely that they would be very susceptible to whatever physical
processes and barriers were driving speciation in other small vertebrates. The
initial idea for the project was simple, get samples from different parts of
the range and compare their morphology and genetics. So we set out to collect
new samples, and also put out the word to our colleagues throughout the state.
We figured that there was probably a
new species of Anniella to be
described, and that maybe we would end up dividing A. pulchra into two species.
In the process of collecting samples, Dr. David Germano (Cal
State Bakersfield) alerted us to some funny-looking Anniella from the San Joaquin Valley (SJV). These specimens lacked
the typical yellow belly, and instead had silvery or purplish bellies. Anniella bellies do have some amount of
variation, the yellow can be faint giving the belly a silvery or pinkish hue
and juveniles in particular can be washed out. But in these specimens the
purple or silver color was very pronounced in adults, and consistent upon
further sampling of specimens in the same area. Then, in an exciting
development, our genetic investigations showed a direct correspondence between
these color variations and the deep genetic differences. The more data we
collected, counting scales under a microscope and bones from x-rays, the more
consistent differences were reinforced for the weird-colored samples from the
SJV. We were also able to show that yellow-bellied samples from the Southern
Sierra Nevada and Southern California were also genetically distinct, although
with less obvious or even non-observable coloration differences. After years of
collecting, we published two papers, a genetic study (Parham and Papenfuss,
2009) and then the description of four new species (Papenfuss and Parham, 2013;
See press release here, see Anderson Cooper’s snarky comments here).
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| This image shows the characteristic belly coloration of three of the four new species. Top (purple, Bakersfield Legless Lizard). Middle (gray, Temblor Legless Lizard). Bottom (yellow, Southern California Legless Lizard). Note that the yellow coloration is also characteristic of the Southern Sierra and Northern California Legless Lizards. Modified from Papenfuss and Parham (2013, Fig. 3) |
But the description of new species is just the beginning of
their scientific history, and over the past few years we have been working to
answer the next questions. For example, If we expand our genetic data with more
DNA from more samples, does it support our findings? (the answer is yes, these
species are well supported). The most pressing questions include: Can we better
determine the geographic distributions of the new species? Which species occur
in protected areas (such as Tejon Ranch and other ecological reserves)? The
fact that some of the new species have such restricted ranges raises important
questions about their conservation status. In particular, the ranges of the two
distinctly colored species are almost entirely restricted to the SJV, an area
that is highly modified by agricultural development and home to other rare and
threatened plants and animals such as the Bakersfield Cactus and the San
Joaquin Kit Fox. A telling comparison is that these both species are found
within a fraction of the range of the Endangered Blunt-Nosed Leopard Lizard (Gambelia sila).
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Map showing the distribution of two of the four new legless lizard
species are entirely within the historic range of the Endangered Blunt-Nosed
Leopard Lizard (Gambelia sila).
Purple: Bakersfield Legless Lizard. White: Temblor Legless Lizard. Gambelia photo by Sarah Rieboldt.
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In an effort to better understand where different species of
legless lizards species occur in the SJV, we focus our search efforts to areas
where no specimens have been previously collected, or where there are no
genetic samples. Which begs the question, how does one find a legless lizard?
One of the main ways that people encounter them is when they are gardening,
i.e., moving soil and debris, and it is possible in some parts of California to
find them by raking under leaf litter. Some people also find them under
objects, such as boards or even garbage that can maintain a moist microclimate.
Using the second observation, we have been successful using a system of cover
objects (“Anniella boards”) for the
past 15 years. Anniella boards can be
made of wood, fashioned cardboard (broken down boxes, taped and glued), or
roofing material. We establish a site by placing 10-50 (usually 10-20) of these
boards in areas where we think Anniella
may occur. At the present time, we have over 1,000 Anniella boards in central California, especially in the San
Joaquin Valley. We usually establish sites in the summer and fall so they can
be seasoned by rain in the winter and then checked in the spring. It can take
years to get an Anniella. In fact one
site that we established in 2004 gave up its first Anniella this year- two individuals under one board -which means we
checked it unsuccessfully, every year, for 10 years.
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Mike White
(Tejon Ranch Conservancy
Science Director) helps install an Anniella
board near Tejon Creek in 2014. Photo by James Parham
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Screen capture of GoogleEarth map showing tracks
for some of the fieldwork we did in Central California in 2014 and 2015.
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Image of the San Joaquin valley. Source: Public
Domain.
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Which brings us to the significance of Tejon Ranch for our
study. Tejon Ranch occupies a central position within the Southern SJV,
equidistant from all known sites of legless lizards. In other words, this large
contiguous property of undeveloped land is in the middle of our gap in
understanding. By studying what species occur where on Tejon Ranch, we can fill
some of the largest gaps in our knowledge about the distribution and potential
contact zones of up to four of the five species. The SJV is highly modified by
extensive agriculture that has destroyed most Anniella habitat within the SJV. Urban development is also an
issue, and some areas where legless lizards were once known have been turned
into housing developments.
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Known range of
California Legless Lizards Right: Detailed map of Central California showing
the uncertain distribution of the new species, especially in the southern San
Joaquin Valley. Modified and updated from Papenfuss and Parham (2013, Fig. 1).
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Isaac Magallanes (Cal
State Fullerton student) surveys for a good place to put
Anniella boards on Tejon Ranch near Tejon Creek in March of tis
year. Photo by James Parham.
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In 2014 and 2015, funded by small internal grants and startup
funds from my position as an assistant professor at Cal State Fullerton, my
students, colleagues, and I have intensified our efforts within Kern County,
including setting up five sites within Tejon Ranch in 2014. Checking these
sites in 2015 yielded one juvenile specimen of uncertain identity (the young
can have washed out belly color) that we still need to test genetically. That
sample is from Tejon Creek, near the center of Tejon Ranch in the foothills of
the Tehachapi. On the eastern side of Tejon Ranch we have sites in the Caliente
Creek, a drainage that we already know has three different species of Anniella at different elevations, and
our best chance for finding an area where two species may contact. We have two
within four miles of each other, which is the closest we have samples of two
different species anywhere in California.
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| Anniella habitat on Tejon Ranch near Caliente Creek. This drainage is important because our research has shown that this drainage includes three different species of Anniella at different elevations, and our best chance for finding an area where two species may contact. Photo by James Parham. |
With boards in place and and predicted end of the drought, we
feel confident that over the next few years we will be able to learn a lot
about what species live in what parts of Tejon Ranch and other sites within the
SJV. Our work will be enhanced by a recently announced State Wildlife Grant,
that has been awarded to our newly expanded working group including myself (Cal
State Fullerton), Erin Tennant (California Department of Fish and Wildlife
Region 4 Lands Program), and Brian Simison (Center for Comparative Genomics,
California Academy of Sciences) as Co-Pis, along with collaborators Ted
Papenfuss (UC Berkeley), Michael Westphal (Bureau of Land Management,
Hollister), and Amy Kurtisubo (Bureau of Land Management, Bakersfield). And
also including many others including Mike White (Conservation Science Director,
Tejon Ranch Conservancy) and numerous land and property owners/managers.
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Erin
Tennant (California Department of Fish and Wildlife) with an Anniella pulchra at
the Yaudanchi
Ecological Reserve, Tulare County. Photo by James Parham.
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The purpose of the State Wildlife Grant is to perform
fieldwork and genetic analyses to further define the distribution and
conservation status of the four newly discovered species of Anniella. New distributional data
discovered as part of this project will be combined with those from museum
records to provide a range-wide analysis of the species’ status and occurrence
on protected lands, such as ecological reserves managed by the California
Department of Fish and Wildlife, Tejon Ranch, and others. Given the modest
ideas for this project early on, it is amazing to see how it has grown in size
and scope. In 2000, I could not have imagined that 15 years later I would still
be studying Anniella and visiting
Tejon Ranch. I am looking forward to the next field season.
Literature Cited
Papenfuss, T.J.,
and J.F. Parham. 2013. Four new species of California legless lizards (Anniella). Breviora 536:1-7.
Parham, J.F., and
T.J. Papenfuss. 2009. Evidence for high genetic diversity among fossorial
lizard populations (Anniella pulchra) in a rapidly developing landscape
(Central California). Conservation
Genetics 10(1):169-176.
