Description: 2.25 to 3.5 inches long from snout to vent. A fairly small lizard with large overlapping keeled scales with spines on them on the back and sides. Scales on the backs of the thighs are mostly keeled. Color is brown, gray, or black with blotches. Sometimes light markings on the sides of the backs form stripes or irregular lines, and sometimes dark blotching may form irregular bands. The rear of the limbs is yellow or orange. The base color of the throat and underside are typically pale to dark gray and sometimes black. Males have blue markings on the sides of the belly edged in black, a single blue patch on the throat, enlarged postanals, enlarged femoral pores, and a swollen tail base. On some males the throat and dorsal coloring around the bright blue can be very dark. Some scales on a male's back and tail become blue or greenish when he is in the light phase. Females have faint or absent blue markings on the belly, no blue or green color on the upper surfaces, and dark bars or crescents on the back. Juveniles have little or no blue on the throat and faint blue belly markings or none at all.

Habitat: Found in a wide variety of open, sunny habitats, including woodlands, grasslands, scrub, chapparal, forests, along waterways, suburban dwellings, where there are suitable basking and perching sites, including fences, walls, woodpiles, piles of rocks and rocky outcrops, dead and downed trees, wood rat nests, road berms, and open trail edges.

Range: This subspecies is endemic to California. Found in upper elevations (generally above 7,000 ft.) on the west side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains from the Tuolumne River drainage to Sequoia National Park.

Found in these States: CA

Diet: Eats small, mostly terrestrial, invertebrates such as crickets, spiders, ticks, and scorpions, and occasionally eats small lizards including its own species.

Reproduction: Mates in early to late spring, depending on the elevation of the location. Courtship and copulation typically occurs from March to June. Egg laying occurs 2 to 4 weeks after copulation. Females dig small pits in loose damp soil where they lay 1 to 3 clutches of 3 to 17 eggs usually from May to July. Eggs hatch in about 60 days, usually from July to September.

Status: Listed as Least Concern in view of its wide distribution, tolerance of a broad range of habitats, presumed large population, and because it is unlikely to be declining fast enough to qualify for listing in a more threatened category.

Taxonomy: This subspecies of Sceloporus occidentalis appears to be invalid. S. o. taylori was removed from the list of Sceloporus occidentalis subspecies on the 2012 (and 2017) SSAR names list, with this note: "Leache et al. presented mtDNA evidence that the previously recognized subspecies S. o. taylori is polyphyletic and represents convergent phenotypic evolution among high elevation populations of S. o. biseriatus."