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The Seed Mix
Introducing the world's first native plant seed mix for a reptile.
"We humans have disrupted natural habitats in so many ways and in so many places that the future of our nation's biodiversity is dim unless we start to share the places in which we live—our cities and, to an even greater extent, our suburbs—with the plants and animals that evolved there." ~Douglas Tallamy
In Spring 2022, Dusty started working as an ecological restorationist for Native American Seed, a company that specializes in native prairie grasses & wildflowers of Texas and the Southern Great Plains. One of the first projects he started working on was to create a native plant seed mix for the habitat & food web of the State Reptile of Texas—the Texas Horned Lizard. For nine months, he worked on it while he was clocked out after-hours and on weekends.
He created this mix for several reasons: He knew that everyday Texans wanted to help restore and support these beloved symbols of the American West. He knew that truly "rehorning Texas" would require every Texan's participation. And he knew that the mere knowledge of a seed mix for this reptile existing would be groundbreaking and revelatory, because it would induce epiphanies in the average landowner that beg them to ponder what's on the landscape and how our historical, current, and future practices on the land influence the kinds of wildlife that also call this place home.
There are 74 species of native Texas prairie grasses and wildflowers in the Horned Lizard Habitat Mix. There are 31 bunchgrasses and 43 wildflowers, making it the most biodiverse seed mix, by far, at Native American Seed.
Why were these species picked for this mix? This mix was designed to maximize the kinds of native bunchgrasses and wildflowers that support the structural habitat & food web needs of Texas Horned Lizards. Bunchgrasses (like Little Bluestem, Sideoats Grama, and Texas Cupgrass) provide crucial shade from the Texas heat, cover from predators, seeds for Harvester Ants—the favorite prey of adult horned lizards, and they don't form dense turfs that impede the movements and camouflage of horned lizards on the bare soil. Even the sun-bleached stems and leaves of old growth are crucial for Texas Horned Lizards, because the whitish stripe down the middle of the lizards' backs mimics these structures, concealing them from predators.
Wildflowers also provide shade and cover and many of them attract the kinds of smaller native ants that baby horned lizards prefer, along with beetles, native bees, and other insects that round out the purely insectivorous diet of Texas Horned Lizards. In particular, intentionally included in this mix are plants that have extrafloral nectaries and elaiosomes, structures that support native beneficial ants and other insects that horned lizards—especially baby horned lizards—need in their diet. There are also a number of keystone food web species in this mix, such as more than one kind of goldenrod, which are also known to support native ants.
Why so much diversity? Research overwhelmingly supports that the more native plant species you have in an area, the more native insects you have in that same area. For species that eat nothing else but native insects (like horned lizards), it's a no-brainer. A healthy prairie, such as where Texas Horned Lizards prefer to live, can have hundreds of native plant species, and planting 74 species at once can give landowners a good head start in that direction, especially when they're starting from scratch after getting rid of aggressive non-native turf grasses like St. Augustine and Bermudagrass.
Can these principles be applied to other species? Heck yes! And that's one of our goals. We can create custom native seed mix recommendations for any wildlife species.
If I plant it, will they come? Yes, if you plant it near existing populations or if zoo- or nature center-bred horned lizards are released there. Rehorning Texas is here to help with these details. But get started! As we start to rebuild their habitat and create more corridors like wildlife overpasses, it's only a matter of time before horned lizards expand back into portions of their former range. You have to have the habitat ready first, and it can take years for a native grassland to mature, so let's get working on it.
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