Description: “Stejneger (1890, N. A. Fauna, No. 3, pp. 109-110) has (provisionally) applied the name H.m. flavilenta to the race of Holbrookia maculata which occupies northern Arizona and western New Mexico, distinguishing it from H.m. approximans, which borders its range on the south, by the more posteriorly situated lateroventral spots in the latter subspecies. The description of Cope 1900: 292 of "dorsal spots obscure or wanting, back yellow speckled" applies exactly to a series of six specimens collected by Ruthven at Alamogordo, New Mexico, about one hundred miles east of the type locality (Lake Valley, New Mex.). Specimens from the Colorado Plateau do not have this coloration, or have it only exceptionally; and to this plateau form I have applied a new name. The labials of the six specimens of H.m. flavilenta collected by Ruthven are decidedly more elongate than those of .m. approximans, and in this respect they approach H.m. maculata. In correlation with this character, the number of upper labials, counted to include the last one which exceeds the adjacent lower labial in size, is less than in H.m. approximans or H.m. campi, which usually have six labials. In the six H.m. ftavilenta, five labials occur nine times, six labials three times. In H.m. campi, five occur six times, six occur fourteen times.

Habitat: The preferred natural habitats of H. maculata are shrubland, grassland, and desert.