Amazing Design of the Horned Lizard

A popular character in old Warner Brothers cartoons was Yosemite Sam, who frequently wished bodily harm to Bugs Bunny. He would often exclaim, "Great horny toads!" The name horny toad is a misnomer for the horned lizard. The body shape kind of resembles a toad, though.

They live in desert areas. There are other lizards that are faster and have other features, but the Creator equipped these to survive and thrive as well. Horned lizards have predators, but to chaw them risks internal damage.

Horned Lizard, Wikimedia Commons / Room237 (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Living in the desert, they can get heat easily enough, but deserts get cold at night. Even burrowing into the sand isn't enough to prevent the cold from making a slow lizard slower. They have an interesting mechanism for warming up before fully emerging. Another feature that shows their design is how to eat without being eaten themselves; horned lizards also eat insects — lots of them. Then there's that unique internal water transport system. There is no way all of these systems are the product of wasteful Darwinian concepts.

Horned lizards aren’t known for speed to avoid predators or venom to bring down threats. But these miniature dragons have other tricks in their arsenal for desert survival. 

“DAY 15. Ran out of water yesterday. Haven’t had a decent meal in a week. Nearly froze last night. Now I’m so hot I’m hallucinating. No shade. No place to hide. Don’t think I can last much longer . . .”

You’ll never see this in a horned lizard’s journal. These diminutive desert dragons may not be as menacing as man-eating crocodiles or venomous vipers, but they are better equipped than Navy SEALs to live life on the edge. Their edge is the dry, forbidding deserts of North and Central America.

To read the rest or listen to the audio, click on "Decked Out for the Desert."