For generations, the Texas horny toad was a backyard pet. As they disappeared, fond childhood memories of these creatures have become a symbol for conservation in Texas.
The Fort Worth Zoo championed conservation efforts, beginning its horned lizard conservation program in 2011 in partnership with Texas Parks and Wildlife, other Texas zoos and TCU to reintroduce the species to its native habitat.
The zoo has since continued raising hatchlings and releasing them into the wild about four hours southwest of Fort Worth at Mason Mountain Wildlife Management Area in Mason County — an ideal location as it neighbors one of the remaining natural populations of lizards.
Diane Barber, senior curator of ectotherms, holds a horned lizard Aug. 26, 2025, at the Fort Worth Zoo. (Mary Abby Goss | Fort Worth Report)
The zoo recently hatched its 2,000th lizard and plans for a release in September, said Diane Barber, Fort Worth Zoo’s senior curator of ectotherms.
Despite the lizards having been in captivity for decades, Barber said no one had researched them, further threatening their disappearance.
“Most of the animals I work with — reptiles and amphibians — people don’t really care about them because they can’t develop a connection. These little guys have a way of getting that attention and breaking barriers,” Barber said.
Researchers look to build up horned lizard population
Dean Williams, a Texas Christian University biology professor at TCU, has led genetic research on conservation of the species.
Why are they called horned frogs?
The unique characteristics of the Texas horned lizard distinguish them from other lizards. Their frog-like shape — wide and flat — and their texture of horns on their back and spine inspire nicknames like the horned frog or horny toad.
He began his research after Texas Parks and Wildlife approached him about the Texas horned lizards reintroduction program, he said. His research identified three main genetic clusters of horned lizards in Texas, aiding the Fort Worth Zoo in focusing on the northern population.
“A lot of people want them on their properties,” Williams said. “The Fort Worth Zoo gets requests from ranchers all over Texas asking for horny toads to be reintroduced to their properties.”
With the first reintroduction attempts, the zoo released adult lizards, resulting in a low survival rate due to high predation.
The program now releases hatchlings.
Although the releases have been successful, questions still remain as horned lizards aren’t as plentiful as they once were, said Kira Gangbin, a TCU doctorate student researching the iconic Texas creature.
“The population isn’t sticking as well as we would want. So the question is, why?” she said.
A baby horned lizard rests in the palm of Diane Barber, senior curator of ectotherms, Aug. 26, 2025, at the Fort Worth Zoo. (Mary Abby Goss | Fort Worth Report)
Gangbin is looking for those answers. She is examining female nesting sites, how fire ants affect survival, and their thermal preferences to determine the time of day best for releases.
“If we can identify areas that females would prefer to nest and release babies in those areas, maybe that would be a better way to reintroduce them and they’d have better survival,” she said.
Fire ants are a major threat to horned lizards and a leading cause of their disappearance. They attack hatchlings and compete with the native harvester ants that form over 90% of their diet, Gangbin said.
Ants attempt to climb out of a trap Aug. 26, 2025, at the Fort Worth Zoo. (Mary Abby Goss | Fort Worth Report)
“The best part about working with horned lizards is that you can convince a lot of people that traditionally wouldn’t want to take the wildlife-centric land management strategy, and you can get them to start,” Gangbin said. “You can teach them how even an ant is really important to the ecosystem.”
Do horned lizards shoot blood out of their eyes?
Horned lizards are among the few animals that eat harvester ants, which have potent venom. They incorporate the ants’ venom into their blood. As a defense mechanism, they can squirt blood through their eyes at predators leaving a bad taste in their mouths.
A horned lizard buries itself under sand Aug. 26, 2025, at the Fort Worth Zoo. (Mary Abby Goss | Fort Worth Report)
Hard to see, hard to save
Understanding the species’ survivorship is also challenging due to tracking technology and the lizards’ incredible camouflage, Barber said.
Hatchlings are tagged with radio frequency identification, or RFID, technology similar to what’s used to locate skiers buried under avalanches.
“They’re so cryptic. They disappear instantly and blend in,” Williams said.
Tags often fall off when the lizards shed their skin, making it harder to track them into adulthood.
“For the majority of them, we will never know their fate,” Barber said.
Reintroduction efforts were sparked from conversations around the species being an icon of the state.
“Everybody rallies behind them,” Gangbin said. “They’re serving as this poster child of conservation.”
Older Texans often share stories about catching bucketfuls of horned lizards as children.
“Now it’s hard to find one,” Gangbin said. “It’s a visualization for that community of how the environment is changing.”
The emotional connection to horny toads became obvious to Barber after she moved here and heard how much people care for the lizard, she said.
“It inspired me,” she said.
The Fort Worth Zoo was the first zoo to successfully breed the species and maintains the largest breeding group. Barber has been with the zoo since the start of the program and the debut of the Texas Wild! exhibit, which kick-started the program, she said.
“If you can successfully preserve horned lizards, you are also successfully preserving other Texas species that rely on the same habitat,” Williams said. “People know about them, people like them and so they’re like a gateway to help conserve habitats.”
What do conservationists love about Texas horned lizards?
Kira Gangbin, TCU doctorate student: “They look like grumpy old men. They are very grouchy and look unlike anything you’ve seen before. That’s why so many people call them horny toads — they look like a frog, but they’re in a lizard form. They have a very unique shape.”
Diane Barber, Fort Worth Zoo senior curator of ectotherms: “They’re just very hardy little lizards. They seem to have a personality where a lot of reptiles typically don’t. My favorite stories with the horned lizard is there’s a lot of Boy Scouts back in the day that used to go around, pick these up and trade them for patches. It’s part of their story. I can’t think of any other species that would have a connection to little boys like that.”
Dean Williams, TCU biology professor and genetic expert: “They’re so cryptic. They disappear instantly and blend in. Even when using radio trackers, we’ve had cases where in a space the size of a desktop, we’ll spend 10 minutes looking and it’ll be wedged between a grass clump in some weird way that you would never think of. Their ability to disappear is really amazing.”
Hannah Dollar is an audience engagement fellow for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at hannah.dollar@fortworthreport.org.
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