The categorizations and characteristics of the two main predation modes in desert lizards are based on very limited data. Quantitative field studies of the characteristics of either predation mode in lizards are rare. It is sometimes necessary to elucidate what animals do under natural conditions before thoughtful and precise questions can be asked about how and why they do what they do. I chose the central questions for this study to be: (1) What does a wide forager do to acquire food, and (2) What proximate ecological factors influence its food acquisition? Tentative answers to these questions provide the basis for two heuristic considerations: (3) What variation in food acquisition exists among wide foragers, and (4) Is this variation great enough to obscure the putative difference between foragers and ambushers?