Texas horned lizard blunt snout, which give it a decidedly batrachian appearance. "Phrynosoma" literally means "toad-bodied" and "cornutum" means "horned". The lizard's horns are extensions of its cranium and contain true bone. The Texas horned lizard is the largest-bodied and most widely distributed of the roughly 14 species of horned lizards in the western United States and Mexico. The average Texas horned lizard is in snout-vent length, but the upper boundary for males is and for females it is . Although its coloration generally serves as camouflage against predation, when threatened by a predator, a horned lizard puffs up and appears very fat,
Golden toad led bachelors to attack amplectant pairs and form what has been described as a "writhing masses of toad balls". During the 1977 and 1982 seasons, males outnumbered females by over 8 to 1 at breeding pools. Each toad couple produced 200–400 eggs each week for the six-week mating period, with each egg approximately 3 mm in diameter. The eggs of the golden toad, black and tan spheres, were deposited in small pools often no more than one-inch deep. Tadpoles emerged in a matter of days, but required another four or five weeks for metamorphosis. During this period, they were highly