Some of the park's lizards, though, brave the daytime heat to do their hunting. Most often seen is the western whiptail. The greenish collared lizard may be seen racing along on his hind legs like a miniature dinosaur. Lizards are about the biggest ground dwellers you scare up on a noonday walk, unless you happen upon a lizard-eater like the big, pink western coachwhip snake. Other animals have their own unique ways of beating the daytime heat.
Some insects fly straight up in the air a short distance, where it is significantly cooler.
There is a beetle that seems to walk around and raise itself up on stilts periodically. It, too, is just achieving a critical distance from the desert floor's killing heat. The cooler, greener Chisos mountains act as something of an oasis in this punishing desert. Wildlife thrives here that could not withstand the harsh aridity. The Sierra del Carmen whitetail deer are one graphic example.