A Desert Spread in Coachella Valley for Fringe-Toed Lizards

This 13,000-acre stretch of desert 15 miles east of Palm Springs was purchased for $25 million to save, preserve and protect a rare, elusive lizard.

The world’s only home of the Coachella Valley fringe-toed lizard is 500 acres of sand dunes in this preserve.

But those who come here expecting to see the 8- to 10-inch-long, sand-colored, black-mottled lizard--a species listed by the federal government as threatened and by the state as endangered--are almost always disappointed.

Since the dedication of the preserve four years ago, fewer than 100 of the 80,000 visitors have seen one. The others had to settle for photographs and descriptions at the Thousand Palms Oasis visitors center.

The fringe-toed isn’t a leaping lizard. But it’s a real speedster, able to bury itself in the sand almost in the flick of an eyelid. With its shovel-shaped snout, the lizard digs several inches into the dune and disappears in seconds.

It gets its name from fringe-like scales on its toes that provide traction, like snowshoes, on the sand. A heat sensor on top of its head that looks like an eye warns the lizard when the temperature is too hot, and it’s time to duck beneath the sand.

Superbly adapted to being a dune dweller, the fringe-toed lizard’s snout has a trapdoor that prevents sand from entering its nose and lungs. Its double set of eyelids, one horizontal, the other vertical, also keep out sand.

Beetles, crickets and other insects provide the main diet for the lizards, which hibernate beneath the sand surface from November through March.

“Years ago, fringe-toed lizards were found on sand dunes scattered throughout 200 square miles of the Coachella Valley. Today several thousand exist only on a mile square of sand dunes in the preserve,” said Cameron Barrows, 35, the Nature Conservancy’s Southern California manager.

Areas where lizards once thrived are now desert communities, golf courses, mobile-home parks. With the habitat shrinking and further development looming, the Nature Conservancy, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the state Department of Parks and Recreation, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the state Department of Fish and Game joined forces to purchase the preserve land and manage it as wild desert.

“In 1980, when the federal government listed the Coachella Valley fringe-toed lizard as threatened, the action initiated a series of events that culminated in the establishment of the preserve,” Barrows said.

He added: “Off-road vehicles were running amok on the sand dunes (and) killing the fringe-toed lizards in wholesale fashion. The dunes where the lizard lives are replenished with sand washing down an alluvial fan from the Indio Hills and blown into dune areas by strong winds.”

To preserve the lizard’s habitat, it was necessary to protect the area generating the sand as well as the dunes. By setting aside 13,000 acres, an entire ecosystem of flora and fauna once common throughout much of Coachella Valley is being preserved, Barrows said.

Within the preserve are a dozen oases containing the largest groves of desert fan palms in California. There are palm-boring beetles, cockroaches, Jerusalem crickets, giant red velvet mites and a round-tailed ground squirrel that, like the fringe-toed lizard, is found nowhere else on Earth.

Paul Wilhelm, 78, is probably better acquainted with fringe-toed lizards than anyone. “I’ve grown up with the lizards. I’ve seen them all my life,” said the nature writer and former resident caretaker of the preserve’s Thousand Palms Oasis.

“I have seen fringe-toed lizards swimming under the sand many, many times. When they bury themselves in the dunes, you can see them moving rapidly under the surface, disturbing the sand on top.”

Wilhelm’s father bought the 80-acre Thousand Palms Oasis in 1906 from prospector Albert (Alkali) L. Thornburg for two mules and a wagon. The oasis is a lush grove of huge 60- to 70-foot-tall 100- to 250-year-old fan palms surrounding a spring-fed pond.

In 1932, when he was 20, Wilhelm built a home there out of palm logs. His pump house now serves as the preserve’s visitors center.

Wilhelm, a lifelong bachelor, sold the oasis to the Nature Conservancy in 1984 with the provision he would live out his life in a cabin he built here near the palm log house.

“For me, seeing the oasis and the desert surrounding it set aside forever as a nature preserve is a dream come true,” Wilhelm said. He pointed to a thicket of mesquite bushes growing on the summit of a nearby mountain.

“Cahuilla Indians for centuries have cremated their dead and buried their ashes in that mesquite grove. I have heard them sing their funeral dirges from the mountain top since I was a little boy.

“The fringe-toed lizards, the oasis, the Indian burial grounds. There are many sacred things saved and protected in this unique nature preserve,” the old man said.