Yesterday, as Blair Hodges was prepping for an upcoming Maxwell Institute podcast interview with David Walker, concerning his just-published book Railroading Religion. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2019. Ills., index. ISBN 978-1-4696-5320-4. Paper. $25.62 (Amazon), he noticed this illustration:
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What?
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I say again, WHAT??
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The Mormon Twitterverse was, shall we say, skeptical. Sure. Uh-Huh. Mountain Alligators? Some were sure this was another case of the Bear Lake Monster, or of the Jackalope. Or maybe it was like the strange case of Jane Carrington Young, a daughter-in-law of Brigham Young, who was sure – sure – she had swallowed a lizard that lived for years within her belly, gnawing away at her insides.
Surely this “mountain alligator” was a hoax. Surely it never existed.
But the Deseret News seemed to think it did, in 1875, and even furnished a colorful description:
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But maybe the Deseret News was in on the hoax – they had, after all, repeatedly published “evidence” for the Bear Lake Monster …
But if so, how to explain this sober report in the News’s rival paper, the Salt Lake Herald, in 1880?
We have received from the [Deseret] Museum a very interesting photograph [not reproduced in the newspaper, alas] of the remarkable fossil … from Manti, Sanpete County, where it was found in the quarry from which rock is being taken to build the temple in that city. The curator of the Museum has named this fossil as a “cranium of a saurian.” It is the upper part of the head, embedded in the country rock, a chalk-like marl, abounding in fossil fish, turtles and other organic forms. In the photograph the teeth of the saurian are seen to be of the carnivorous type. The part of the head which is exposed, by removal of the rock, is shaped like that o a crocodile … This is a curious creature. It is locally called ‘the mountain alligator” …
Well. That sounds serious. Rock-hard solid serious.
The Salt Lake Herald was still endorsing the existence of mountain alligators in 1885, when a reporter visiting the Deseret Museum listed “among the most notable things to be seen there” samples of Utah’s minerals, “stuffed birds and animals found in the Territory,” cabinets of seashells, “reptiles, insects, mountain alligators, scorpions, centipedes, etc.; relics from Kirtland, Nauvoo and Carthage,” and “antiquities and curiosities” from around the world.
It’s notable that the mountain alligators (plural) are listed separately from the “stuffed birds and animals” – at some points in its history, the Deseret Museum included a menagerie of living creatures. Is it possible that the mountain alligators were not only real, but living, rather than fossilized??
Scientists seemed to think so, and persisted in their belief for decades. Here is a scientific description of a mountain alligator from a California science journal of 1922:
MOUNTAIN ALLIGATOR LIZARD.
Description.—Body long and rather slender, with short limbs and long tail. Head pointed, with flattened top and nearly vertical sides, its temporal regions somewhat swollen. large rostral plate rounded in upper outline. Behind it, on top of head, follow a pair of small internasals, a pair of small frontonasals, a large azygous prefontal, a pair of large prefrontals, a large frontal, a pair of frontoparietals, two parietals separated by an interparietal, and a pair of occipitals with one or more interoccipitals between them. Two series (of five and three) supraoculars, and one series of small superciliaries. All temporal scales keeled. Upper labials much larger than lower. Below latter, two series of sublabial plates, interior larger. Gular scales imbricate and smooth. Scales on upper surfaces and sides of neck, body, and tail large, rhomboidal, slightly oblique, strongly keeled reinforced with bony plates, and arranged in both longitudinal and transverse series. Number of longitudinal series on body 16. Number of transverse rows between interoccipital plate and backs of thighs varying from 42 to 49 in specimens examined. A band of granules along each side from large ear-opening to anus, usually hidden by a strong dermal fold. Ventral plates about size of dorsals, smooth, imbricate, and arranged in twelve (or thirteen) longitudinal series. Number of scales from symphyseal plate to anus 59 to 62.
The ground color above is olive-brown or bluish or greenish drab— ((Do you have any idea how many of the words in this description do not appear in spellchecker? Do you??))
[insert sound of a record-player scratching to a halt]
This couldn’t be our mountain lizard, then. Its coloration is all wrong. Ours is a stunning orange and black, not olive-brown or greenish-drab!
But still, the California scientists believed there was something called a “mountain alligator” …
My friends, my friends. Do not doubt the existence of the mountain alligator. It is real, and it is spectacular.
Finally, the Salt Lake newspapers provided not only the name “mountain alligator,” but the scientific name Heloderma Suspectus. Suddenly all is made clear – Latin doesn’t lie!
So behold, the MOUNTAIN ALLIGATOR in its orange and black spender … or, as you may more familiarly know it, the Gila Monster!
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But—are they in Utah??? I never knew that….
This made my day. Thanks, Ardis!
Ha! The instant I saw “orange and black” I suspected it was the Gila monster — confirmed by the estimated length of 19″. That’s really fun!
(And proof of how language changes over time and across geography!)
What a great weekend read, Ardis. Thanks!
Love it!
As a herpetologist, I may be able to shed some light on this. Those words may not be in a spellchecker but believe it or not, I know what every one of them means.
The Mountain Alligator Lizard described in the referenced journal article is not a “Mountain Alligator,” but is the “Mountain” species of “alligator lizard.” Alligator lizards are a perfectly normal genus of lizards, having nothing more to do with actual alligators than an alligator snapping turtle does, or than a catfish has to do with a cat. (But there is a weird story about how the band America came to include a cryptic reference to “alligator lizards in the air” in their song Ventura Higway.
The lizard discussed in that publication is Gerrhonotus palmeri, and at the time was known by the common name of Mountain Alligator Lizard, being found in the Sierra Nevada of California. Since 1922 however, the North American alligator lizards have been moved into the genus Elgaria, and Gerrhonotus palmeri is now considered a subspecies of the Northern Alligator Lizard Elgaria coerula. So the lizard formerly known as the the “Mountain Alligator Lizard” is now a subspecies, the Sierra Alligator Lizard, Elgaria coerulea palmeri. I’m sure that the Utah references to “mountain alligators” have no connection to this alligator lizard.
I’ve never heard the gila monster (Heloderma suspectum, but never count on a newspaper to get biological names right) being called a “mountain alligator,” but that’s the nature of common names, I guess. Gila monsters aren’t found in the mountains, so the name is rather puzzling. In Utah, they’re found only in the Mohave Desert in the extreme (and I do mean extreme) southwestern corner of the state. Not exactly a mountainous area.
Range north in AZ to extreme SW Utah.
https://www.heloderma.net/en/range.html
“The First White Man’s Boat” made by Kit Carson sounds like the museum had the rubber raft Fremont, Carson, and Preuss rode in when they visited Fremont Island in 1843.
That is, unless we’re to believe that Kit Carson made the first sewing machine in Utah.
Well, I wasn’t expecting to learn any herpetology on my lunch break today, but I’m glad I did. Thanks, Ardis and Left Field!
Although I didn’t want to muddy up this post initially, my search of the newspapers turns up “mountain alligator” being used all over the United States, in verdant hilly places and in flat regions covered with amber waves of grain. Americans apparently used “mountain alligator” for all kinds of lizards, without regard to mountain proximity. I have no idea where that started, or how it ended, or whether it continues in some places.
This is a great read. Thank you! My dad, born and raised in St. George, used to regale us with tales of gila monsters and horned toads. The thing that jumped out at me from the advertisement was “dog’s hair.” A collection of dog’s hair??
Anne, that’s dog’s hair (actual hair off the back of your pet dog Rover), spun into yarn and knitted into sweaters or blankets. We tend to think of that as a gimmick offered by pet fanciers on etsy today, but in the 18th and 19th centuries, that was a popular source of fabric. Notice how it’s in the list alongside “home manufactures” of “silk, cotton, woolen.”
Hold it, wha…. There’s not actually a Bear Lake monster?
I apologize for not having posted a trigger warning for you, Paul. 😉
The real Bear Lake Monster was the friends we made along the way.
Oh dear, I needed a trigger warning about the Bear Lake monster.
I grew up with it but I didn’t realize it was so well known.