The Gila monster is located near the Gila River, and they are found in the Sonora Desert.
They are the largest lizards in the United States, and they weigh o.5-1.4 kilograms (Approximately 1-3 pounds). It is about 2 feet in length. The chin, nose, and sides of its head are a shade of dark black. Its beady eyes have well- developed eye lids. It hears through slanted ear openings on the sides of its head. Strong jaws, fleshy gums, and grooved teeth surround a purple forked tongue. The cheeks are puffy because of venom glands located right beneath the jaw. It has knobby scales on the rest of its body called tubercles. These scales fit side by side. They do not overlap like snake scales. The tubercles are black, pink, orange, and coral colored. The pattern of colors is different with each lizard like every mole is in a different place on each person.
Gila monsters like to live in rock crevices in rocky areas, desert mountains, and canyons. In broad valleys they prefer other animal?s homes for their dwellings. Gila monsters are also found near rivers, streams, scattered cacti, open grasses, pine-oak forests, thorn forests, and can even be found in irrigated land.
It uses its tongue to sense the trail to eggs of snakes,
lizards, and birds. If bird eggs are in trees the Gila monster
will climb the trees. It eats soft-shelled eggs whole, and it cracks open hard-shelled eggs with its jaws. Sometimes it will eat young squirrels, rabbits, and birds. The extra fat that the Gila monster intakes is stored in the stout tail.
The bite of a Gila monster is venomous. Its jaws are hard to pry apart, and the longer the teeth are inserted, the more venom that comes out. Although the venom can be fatal, humans rarely die from it. There is too much saliva to do much damage. It hibernates from November to January, and it estivates during summer if it gets too warm. The tail fat is used up during long sleeping periods.
The gila monster mates in July and early August. The mother lays 3 to 15 leathery eggs that are two and one-half inches long and one and one-half inches in diameter into a 3-5 in. deep hole in the sand. The mother covers her eggs with sand before leaving them. When the babies are born, they have egg teeth to chip away the egg. The Gila monsters are 4inches long when they come out of the shell.
Humans have been destroying the gila monsters? habitat so much that they are now protected by Arizona law. The Gila monster is now an endangered species.
