Search for the Island Night Lizard!!!

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00][snorts] Three. There's three.

[00:00:02]>> Holy cow.

[00:00:03]>> No way.

[00:00:04]>> Look at that lizard. Oh my goodness.

[00:00:09]>> Yeah.

[00:00:16]>> Good morning everybody. It is bright and well dark and early actually. We are heading out on a very interesting herping adventure today. going to a place I've wanted to go to look for a species I've wanted to look for for many, many years now. So, it's going to be a very exciting day. We're heading down to Newport Harbor right now or we're going to get on a boat. So, I'll catch up with you guys back down at the harbor.

[00:00:41]All right, everybody. We are down in Newport Harbor here. It's a nice cloudy morning. Supposed to be pretty calm, pretty nice today. My buddy's going to meet us here in a couple of hours and we are going to get on his boat heading out to Santa Barbara Island to look for a reptile I've wanted to search for for many, many years. The island night lizard. These guys have a very small range. They only live on a couple of the Channel Islands with Santa Barbara Island being the only one that has anything resembling public access.

[00:01:12]Although, it's still very tricky to get onto the island as you guys will see later. So very excited to get out to the island and look for these amazing reptiles. So yeah, I'll get back to you guys when we're on the boat.

[00:01:26]Fueling up.

[00:01:30]So we are leaving Newport Harbor. Whoa, Brorant.

[00:01:35]Good timing. Yeah, we're on our way out of the harbor now. We have about a 2hour or so boat ride out to the island. Very exciting. I think there's a pretty good chance we see some other cool wildlife on our way to or from the island today.

[00:01:47]So, I will be sure to document that.

[00:01:49]This trip obviously is mostly for the night lizard, but there's a whole lot of interesting plants, animals, and other cool stuff we could see on our way to and on the island itself. So, going to be doing a lot of documenting of wildlife of all different sorts today.

[00:02:02]So, very excited to see what we can find.

[00:02:10]>> We're underway. We're moving. No, >> there it is.

[00:02:35]>> That is sick.

[00:02:39]>> How about that? That was a good view.

[00:02:45]>> Three. There's three.

[00:02:46]>> Holy cow.

[00:02:47]>> No way.

[00:02:51]>> That was awesome. That's good views, man.

[00:02:57]>> Wow. Maybe four.

[00:02:59]>> Oh my gosh.

[00:03:03]>> Wow.

[00:03:05]>> That was crazy.

[00:03:08]They just swim by here.

[00:03:30]I know it's loud, but we got our first view at Santa Barbara Island right here.

[00:03:34]17 mi off still, but it's here.

[00:03:58]Look at that California sea line all the way up there. What's up, dude?

[00:04:04]Bro, he's way up there. Look at that.

[00:04:06]That's crazy.

[00:04:13]>> Wait, wait. There's a surge.

[00:04:17]All right, there you go. Perfect.

[00:04:20]>> Does that not hurt? [laughter] Is that >> This is awesome.

[00:04:25]>> There we go. You're just going to anchor up and paddle over.

[00:04:28]>> Yeah.

[00:04:29]>> All right. Well, we're on the island. Oh my god, >> this is so awesome. Yeah, watch the sea lion, bro.

[00:04:36]>> Let me get a picture.

[00:04:37]>> Yeah, I'm not going to get too close.

[00:04:47]>> Yeah, >> no.

[00:04:50]>> Look at this guy.

[00:04:51]>> Look, he's got balls. Do you see them?

[00:04:53]He's got huge testicles.

[00:04:54]>> Oh, I need to get the closeup on that.

[00:04:57]>> Let's go back to sleep. Where's an NPC?

[00:05:00]One of the coolest plants on the island.

[00:05:02]You can see they're absolutely everywhere up there. But look at the giant coropsis. They do have a very nice bloom at certain times of the year. It looks like it's all past its prime, but beautiful. Amazing regardless.

[00:05:22]All right, folks. Well, we've been on the island for I don't know, grand total of 5 minutes. And look at that.

[00:05:28]That is the island night lizard.

[00:05:31]Zantusia. What is it? River. I don't even remember. Oh, but yeah, beautiful island night lizard. First one.

[00:05:37]Hopefully the first of many. These lizards are supposed to have the highest density of any lizard in North America.

[00:05:43]So, they should be quite common here on the island.

[00:05:46]>> So, hopefully this is the first of many.

[00:05:47]That's absolutely amazing. I cannot believe that lizard. Off the charts.

[00:05:51]Look at it next to my hands.

[00:05:54]Look how fat it is. Absolutely crazy.

[00:06:02]It's quite the view, man. And there's our buddy just anchored up. He's on his way over here. Look at that.

[00:06:08]>> Check this out. There's some pelican chicks begging down there. Look at that.

[00:06:16]>> It seems like it would be a good area to go to. Just interesting.

[00:06:20]>> But look, this is where I wanted to go.

[00:06:22]>> Check it out. We got a youngster here.

[00:06:24]Oh, >> the thing happened to them. They shrink.

[00:06:47]>> Look at this habitat.

[00:06:54]It's incredible.

[00:06:56]too familiar with what kind of choya this is, but my foot definitely is. That hurt like uh you know what? That did not feel good. This out, folks. We have what is in my opinion the most beautiful specimen so far. Look at that lizard. Oh my goodness.

[00:07:14]Padding, rusty orange colors.

[00:07:18]Just incredible. I mean, look at that.

[00:07:20]What a phenomenal lizard. I kind of just at a loss for words. Such an amazing amazing species and with a beautiful ocean front view.

[00:07:31]Look at that.

[00:07:33]Spectacular. We got the endemic Santa Barbara Island live forever. There's a whole beautiful cluster of them right here.

[00:07:41]Very beautiful plants.

[00:07:45]>> You can see Sutal Island way over there.

[00:07:48]It's a big colony of nesting birds on that island. And apparently the night lizards live there too, which is pretty wild. Pretty crazy out here.

[00:07:57]>> This one hide hid under my shoe.

[00:07:59]>> One just went into some cactus.

[00:08:00]>> Look at that. They're large. They are very large night lizards. Look at that.

[00:08:06]And they live in probably some of the most insanely scenic habitat I've ever heard in. Very, very common. They seem to be more or less everywhere out here.

[00:08:19]is the type of habitat that these lizards seem to prefer. Nice rocky outcrops here. Quite common. One unfortunate thing is all this cactus around. I don't like it too much, but what a unique opportunity. Truly one of the lizards of all time.

[00:08:37]Got the endemic Santa Barbara Island live forevers in the background. See Sallet right there. Just amazing. All right, now we're making our way through all this terrible cactus up to the highest point on the island, Signal Peak, with an elevation of I think 600 ft and some change. It's not a very high high point, but it is the high point for Santa Barbara Island. So, we're going to work our way up there right now. Look at these plants.

[00:09:06]Incredible.

[00:09:07]It's >> got to be invasive, right?

[00:09:09]>> I I bet that's native.

[00:09:10]>> Really?

[00:09:11]>> Yeah. Wow. That's incredible.

[00:09:19]How clear the water is down there.

[00:09:21]Amazing.

[00:09:47]Look at all those sausages.

[00:09:58]Here we are on the summit. Got the geological survey marker right there.

[00:10:05]>> This is an island. Sigma Peak. Look at this.

[00:10:14]And we got a really dark one here. Check this out.

[00:10:18]Next to my hand. That's still not a very big one. Honestly, a lot of the other ones have been a fair bit bigger than that. But pretty interesting.

[00:10:30]>> We are down to our last little bit of time here on the island.

[00:10:35]Finishing up our day. What an incredible little adventure. I can't believe we got to see all those night lizards. Um they're obviously very common in this habitat. That was absolutely incredible.

[00:10:44]We're gonna do a little bit more exploring uh on the way back home. Check out a few other cool interesting features and things that are around here. Sea line from this morning is still in the same place he was.

[00:10:56]But yeah, what an awesome day.

[00:11:00]Honestly, some of the coolest herping I think I've ever done.

[00:11:20]He's going to show his balls. They're crazy. They're huge.

[00:11:24]>> Whoa.

[00:11:25]>> Oh, shoot. Red rocket.

[00:11:26]>> Oh, boy.

[00:11:27]>> No way.

[00:11:29]>> Interesting.

[00:11:32]We're back in.

[00:11:34]We are back underway.

[00:11:35]>> We're going to go check out Sudal Island, which has a colony of nesting seabirds.

[00:11:40]>> Is that where the shrimp went?

[00:12:04]There's a bunch at the front right here.

[00:12:06]>> Then yeah, look at all the way up there.

[00:12:10]Sea lions have made their way all the way up there. That's insane.

[00:12:17]>> Where are they going?

[00:12:18]>> I have no idea. That's crazy.

[00:12:34]So that's Signal Peak up there. That's where we were earlier. Way up there.

[00:13:00]That is incredible.

[00:13:01]>> That's awesome.

[00:13:11]>> Incredible.

[00:13:12]Some brown boobies up there on the cliff.

[00:13:16]Look at that.

[00:13:18]It's one of the I think maybe the only place or one of the only places in California that they actually nest here.

[00:13:24]Oh, here comes one close.

[00:13:27]>> Look right down.

[00:13:28]>> I know. I know.

[00:13:31]>> Guys, come up here.

[00:13:34]Look at all the bite marks on them.

[00:13:35]>> Oh my god.

[00:13:42]>> That's so high.

[00:13:49]That's so cool, dude.

[00:13:50]>> Never gets old, man. Look at under the bow again. Hi, guys. Look at all those scratch marks on that one.

[00:13:59]Yeah.

[00:14:07]>> Why is he so dripping?

[00:14:08]>> Holy crap. He's the coolest thing I've ever seen. [sighs] >> Holy This is awesome.

[00:14:23]>> Wow.

[00:14:28]>> Not a very big one to be honest.

[00:14:30]>> Yeah, smaller one.

[00:14:33]>> Oh, it's a cow calf. Cuz that's a mom.

[00:14:36]>> That's a mom and a baby.

[00:14:37]>> Oh my goodness. That's awesome.

[00:14:41]>> Holy. [laughter] That's cute. That's awesome.

[00:14:48]That's the calf right there. And there's the mom.

[00:14:50]>> How big she is.

[00:14:51]>> Yeah. Wow.

[00:14:58]Oh, I've never seen that before.

[00:15:04]>> Yeah. No, I never seen that.

[00:15:07]That's wild. There's elephant seal colony up here.

[00:15:14]No, he's like in the water.

[00:15:17]>> They're cute.

[00:15:19]>> Oh, look at him. [laughter] >> Is that the only dominant male? The one on the left? The one that's just calling?

[00:15:25]>> Oh, the one that's staring right now.

[00:15:26]>> Yeah.

[00:15:30]>> Excuse you.

[00:15:32]>> Pardon me.

[00:15:34]>> Look at this one going into the water looking at us.

[00:15:39]>> Got be There's no terrorizing.

[00:15:57]>> You're ruining the footage, bro. Come on.

[00:16:28]This is like comedic. It's so funny.

[00:16:54]What a day. And there we go. Back on the dock.

[00:16:59]>> That's how you end the day.

[00:17:05]All righty, folks. Well, we're on our way home. What an incredible day.

[00:17:09]Honestly, I couldn't have asked for a better trip. Not only did we see a ridiculous amount of our target night lizards, we saw a whole bunch of other amazing wildlife, several different species of whales, both of which showed very well. Dolphins, sea lions, some cool birds, and we just had a really great trip with some amazing weather.

[00:17:29]It's funny, it's actually just started to rain now on our drive home. So, we couldn't have timed it any better. But yeah, I want to thank you guys very much for watching. That was incredible. Um, not sure what my next turfing expedition is going to be, but I will see you guys the next time I get out. Thanks for watching. [music] [music]