Mid Lizzie

The Legend of Lizzies
The musician and I dreamed of having whiptail lizards living on our property from the time we first moved to New Mexico.  Nine years later, we realized our dream when 2 whiptails moved in. One year after that (present time) 2 more have appeared. 
We named our first-born, Gatekeeper, because she lives near the side gate that leads from the front yard to the back yard where we keep our bicycles.  Gatekeeper is the largest and appears only during hot afternoons when we take our bikes from back to front to begin our ride, or vice versa.
Because all New Mexico whiptails are female (honest), we named everyone thereafter, Lizzie something. Our second lizard appeared on the opposite side of the house to Gatekeeper, so we named her Side Lizzie.

A year later two more whiptails have appeared: Mid-Lizzie (who lives in the front yard between the first two Lizzies, and Back Lizzie, who lives...you guessed it!  We can tell by the size of them who is whom.  Mid-Lizzie and Back Lizzie share the territory of Gatekeeper (the east side of the house).  

We have not observed Gatekeeper anywhere but on the East side, near the gate. 
Side Lizzie ventures into Mid Lizzie’s territory but she keeps mostly to the west side from the side back door all the way to the sidewalk.  We have even seen her venture into the neighbor’s yard on the west side.
This is all very fascinating and entertaining to the musician and me; we feel honored to serve as hosts to these sweet, sweet wee creatures.