Wide, oddly smooth grayish-blue lizard in SW Texas scrubland- any IDs? (1 Viewer)

[Tired]

I was down in Uvalde County this last weekend, which is one county over from Mexico. Caliche soil, scrubby brush, pretty dry, great lizard habitat. I saw plenty of lizards I know, and a couple I found the names of, but there's one I'm not sure of.

This little fellow was maybe 5" long, and I cannot figure out what he is. I've looked through a couple of lists of lizards that live in Texas, including every lizard species seen in the state by INaturalist users, and nothing looks quite right. I even scrolled through the INat list of all lizard species seen in Mexico, just in case this little guy was really lost. All the lizards that are closest in body shape are spiny. Collared lizards in general aren't completely dissimilar, but they're not as wide, and they all have patterns and colors. So unless he's the whatever-this-is equivalent of a leatherback bearded dragon (morph with very reduced spines), I don't know what this is. Fat collared lizard with absolutely no pattern to him? Can they change colors like geckos do?

 

[RJP]

Looks to be a very well fed, or possibly gravid, Texas Greater Earless Lizard (Cophosauras texanus texanus).

 

[Tired]

Ah, that's it! I found a couple pictures of them online that have that same overall lack of patterns, but the leg stripes are the same. Thank you, that's my ID right there.

...oh, and I've realized something. This little fellow was right next to a creekbed that had many, many newly emerged toads around it. Toads less than half an inch long. Definitely well within edible size for a lizard like this. I believe it's within breeding season for a lot of lizards, so it could be either gravid or plump, or both. If it's plump, I'd bet a lot of that is on toads. I'm going to opt not to think too hard about that, I like toads. Especially cute, freshly emerged ones.