[2][3][4] The specific epithet, stansburiana, is in honor of Captain Howard Stansbury of the US Corps of Topographical Engineers, who collected the first specimens while leading the 1849-1851 expedition to explore and survey the Great Salt Lake of Utah.

Researchers from Utah State University have suggested that this relationship between physical capabilities and coloration plays a role in sexual competition amongst male side-blotched lizards.

[16] When comparing populations within wind farms and in neighbouring control sites, no differences in oxidative stress are seen in the side-blotched lizard.

[17] Analysis of DNA nuclear microsatellites has provided genetic evidence for the rock-paper-scissors behavior pattern of male side-blotched lizard competition.

[14] For the side-blotched lizard, limbs serve as an anti-predatory defense – their ability to survive without a tail allows them to escape predation after being caught.

[20] Male side-blotched lizards exhibit distinct polymorphism in their throat colors, and can be divided into three different categories.

Each of these three different morphs varies in how it competes for mates, and variation within a breeding population is maintained by a rock paper scissors mechanism of frequency-dependent sexual selection.

A cycle is created where the least common morph of one breeding season often has the largest number of mature living offspring in the next year.

Instead, orange-throated females are more successful at lower population densities, where competition for food is less fierce and less selection pressure from predation occurs.

[14] When population density is high and or when predators abound, yellow-throated females tend to have higher reproductive success.

In general, their larger hatchlings have higher short-term and long-term survival rates, and these advantages are magnified in times of scarcity.

Side-blotched lizards show displays and aggression shortly after hatching, and even minute differences in size can lead to increased social dominance and capacity to outcompete the smaller hatchlings.

Tailless female lizards have reduced overall survivorship due to the increased risk of predation they experience without this physiological defense mechanism.

Although tailless female side-blotched lizards experience an increased risk of death, the loss of a tail does not impose an energetic handicap on them that negatively impacts their potential growth and reproduction.

[23] As the reproductive season progresses for side-blotched lizards, females tend to produce fewer but larger eggs.

[24] Researchers at Utah State University also verified that clutch frequency is positively correlated with the density of rainfall.

[23] The "rock-paper-scissors" mating strategy is a genetically-based male polymorphism that has been maintained over millions of years throughout many populations of side-blotched lizard in the United States and Mexico.

[27] Predator-prey dynamic also change after a male morph is lost, with predators evolving to prey on the remaining morphologies.

Subordinate females can still mate, but male reproductive success is directly tied to their social status.

[31] If the intruder is a female, the male resident will initiate courtship, which consists of circling, flank-biting, licking, smelling, shallower head-bobbing, and eventually copulation.

This suggests that there are differences in neuronal plasticity across the three morphs in the regions of their brains that are responsible for the processing, recognition, and learning of new spatial information.

In a study published by the University of Nevada, researchers confirmed that when territorial side-blotched lizards are placed in larger spaces, the production of new neurons in the region of their brains responsible for spatial learning become stimulated.

LaDage Roth Sinervo et al 2016 confirmed that environmental experiences of both territorial and non-territorial side-blotched lizards affects the cortical volume of their brains.

[35] While there is a confirmed relationship between territoriality, spatial informational processing, and neuronal plasticity, researchers have suggested that testosterone plays a role in the regulation of medial cortical volumes.

In a study conducted by Best et al.., these lizards were found to consume diets largely based upon arthropod populations within the area, within a given season.

Alternatively, the sexual difference in feeding behavior could also act in favor of reducing intraspecific competition for resources, with individuals eating prey appropriate for their respective size (ex.

[17] Parasites can alter metabolism and reproductive success of side-blotched lizards due to body temperature changes in response to fighting the infection.