Have you ever been so filled up with the wonder of a place that it wants to spill out as a song? Well, here is the songbook. I imagine walking through a forest and pausing to read these illuminating pages aloud to a listening cedar or a dipper. There are field guides that help us to see, and to name, and to know; Cascadia Field Guide does all of that and more. This is a guide to relationship, a gift in reciprocity for the gifts of the land.
– Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass
Pygmy Short-Horned Lizard
(Phrynosama douglasii)
You will have to be sharp-eyed to spy the grays and browns of sand, soil, and stone worn by Pygmy Short-horned Lizard, especially when they freeze in place to avoid detection or shimmy themselves into sand to escape the heat.
The adults are only about two to three inches long and have small nubs (or horns) pointed outward from the back of their smallish head and a round, flattened, spiky body edged by pointy scales.
Like other reptiles, they are ectothermic (cold-blooded), relying on their external environment to regulate their body temperature. Unlike most reptiles, however, who lay eggs, these females give live birth. Imagine holding seven tiny dragons, each as big as the tip of your pinkie, and you’ll understand why you might call this being magical. These little ones exist solely on a diet of ants, so wherever they are, an anthill or three will be close by.
The only place on the planet you will find this being is in Cascadia. Sadly, they have been extirpated from their former range in British Columbia but can still be found in other parts of the Shrub-steppe, and there are even some who live in the mountains where, as they hibernate under four to five inches of sand, they freeze solid like an ice pop, only to thaw in spring and crawl forth into the light.
Pygmy Short-Horned Lizard
Flat-bodied with a bluish underbelly
I loved to rub until her eyes
slowly closed, or his eyes, whatever it was.
We called them horny toads,
scooped from the sun-beaten
canyon floor, caught asleep
under the sagebrush shade.
They were more docile than the sleek,
slippery lizards, always squirming
through our fingers, feeling
for a way out. But the horny toads
seemed content as kittens,
would purr if they could.
I’d stroke the skin
between their ancient
triceratops heads, touch
a finger to the horned tips
and never break the skin.
I liked how they popped up on all fours
like a dog, looking for ants, then
flattened themselves to ground,
blending into the grainy tans
of sandy soil. I kept one in a shoebox
under my bed for days, feeding it
flies, a blue bottlecap of water
tucked in one corner, a bed
of newspaper ripped in strips,
headlines torn in half, then torn
again. It was the shredded world
she lived in, a mayhem of tiny letters
she couldn’t read, but even I,
a child, could see I had to give her up
to the dangers and cruelties,
the mess we’d made of it,
and let her go back to her home
under the high-tension towers
that buzzed through the canyon,
the smashed beer bottles
and crushed tin cans, plastic bags
struggling in windy branches
like trapped birds. And if he or she
could live there and thrive,
so could I. She never once
spit blood from her eyes.
Never ran. Only walked slowly
from my open palm and stood
above her shadow
on the cracked earth,
turning to stare at me
for what seemed like a long time,
before unhurriedly turning away.
Emily Poole was raised in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and has now put down roots in the mossy hills of Oregon. She received her BFA in Illustration from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2016. She has created work for numerous organizations including the National Museum of Wildlife Art, Creature Conserve, Sasquatch Books, and High Country News. By making playful and accessible images that foster an emotional connection between the viewer and the subject matter, Poole seeks to engage viewers in learning about what’s going on in the natural world and what they can do to protect it.
Header image, Eastern Rivers Cluster, by Justin Gibbens, from Cascadia Field Guide. Photo of Xavier Cavazos courtesy Pictures of Poets.