All Angles Creatures
Squamata · AmphisbaenidaeEntry 984 of 21,572
Red Wormlizard, Amphisbaena alba

Reptilia · Squamata

Amphisbaena albaLinnaeus, 1758

Red Wormlizard

Photograph by Edivan De Souza, CC BY, via iNaturalist

An active by day or night, meat-eating lizard from the Neotropic region, reaching 810 mm snout to vent.

Also called Red Worm Lizard.

Reptilia › Squamata › Amphisbaenidae › Amphisbaena

Grows to
810mm
greatest recorded
Eats
Carnivorous
Active
Cathemeral
Lives up to
40years
Body length across Amphisbaenidae

Longer than 99% of all species in Amphisbaenidae anyone has measured.

99% of 178 species are smaller1% larger
107 mmthe whole family, smallest to largest810 mm

The bar is the rank itself: its length is the share of the family this animal exceeds. The chart below is the family’s real spread, on a logarithmic scale because body length here runs from 107 to 810 mm. The solid rule is this animal. Every bar is a count of real species, and nothing on this figure is estimated.

What is known

39 sourced facts, each taken from a named scientific dataset. How to read these.

Cited from a dataset unless a row is marked otherwise.

Standing in the world

Still living
Extant
Conservation status
Least Concern
Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
2014
Population trend
Stable

The animal itself

Limbs
None
Venomous
No
Fangs
None
Longest recorded life
40years

Carey and Judge 2000, De Magalhaes & Costa 2009: 15.1; : 14 and 11 months, Snider and Bowler 1992: 15 and 2 months; 8 of 19 specimens are 36 years in captivity (mean 20.16 years, Jared et al. 2024), Jared et al.2024 write "Based on our data, it is possible to estimate that A. alba can reach 40 years old or more, at least in captivity" and given the number I think this is very conservative and use 40

Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
25°C77 °F

mean body temperature of active individuals in nature

Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
25°C

body temperature of active animals in nature

Size

Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
810mm2 ft 8 in

max 810 mm SVL (Feldman et al. 2016)

Length snout to vent · adult female mean
534mm21 in
Largest female · snout to vent
534.3mm21 in

snout-vent length; the source column mixes this with straight carapace length

Hatchling length · snout to vent
160mm6.25 in
Largest juvenile · snout to vent
160mm6.25 in
Body mass · greatestcomputed
981.9g2.2 lb

computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed

Body mass · a typical adult
210g7.4 oz

AnAge rates this record "acceptable"

How it lives

Diet
Carnivorous

insects, eggs and mice (Murphy 1997) / arthropods (Kearney 2003, Starace 1998, Colli and Zamboni 1999), small snakes (Starace 1998, Gomes et al. 2009, Starace 2013), lizards and perhaps mammals (Gomes et al. 2009), also annelids (O'Shea 1998), plants, invertebrates (e.g., betles) and small vertebrates (Murphy et al. 2018)

Active
Cathemeral

(Murphy 1997) / mostly nocturnal (Starace 1998, Starace 2013, Murphy et al. 2018) / diurnal (Linares and Eterovick 2013)/non heliotherm (Vitt et al. 2008)

Where it lives
Fossorial, terrestrial

Fossorial and terrestrial (Vitt et al. 2008), fossorial and swims well (Murphy et al. 2018)

Habitat
Forest, Grassland, Savanna, Shrubland
Biome
Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
Region
Neotropic
Mainland or island
Mainland
Highest it lives · above sea level
500m

0-300 (Senaris and Rojas-Runjaic 2020)

Range size
13,781,841km²

Breeding

Reproduction
Oviparous
Average clutch
9.25eggs
Eggs or young per clutch
6–16eggs

Colli and Zamboni 1999: 8-16; Andrade et al. 2006: 8; Vitt et al. 2008: 8-16 (n=2), 8-16 (Murphy et al. 2018, Al-Sadoon et al. 2014), 6-16 (Jared et al. 2024)

Mean clutch
6.5–12eggs
Clutches in a year
1per year
Clutches a year
1per year

Naming and history

Suborder
Amphisbaenia
Infraorder
Amphisbaenia (Laterata)
Subspecies
No
Described by
Linnaeus
Moved to another genus · since it was first described
No
Described in
1758
Type locality
America”

Keeping one

10 ft 8 in × 10 ft 8 in × 6 ft 8 in(324 × 324 × 203 cm)

Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better. Substrate at least 16 in (41 cm) deep.

The standard sizes ground-dwelling species at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times snout-vent length.

Burrows, so substrate deep enough to dig in matters as much as floor area.

Mindestanforderungen an die Haltung von Reptilien (Sachverständigengutachten), German Federal Ministry for Nutrition, Agriculture and Forestry, Animal Welfare Division, 10 January 1997. The standard states these floor areas are recommendations rather than binding limits.

From this animal’s own snout-vent length of 2 ft 8 in (810 mm), at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.

Active animals measured in the wild averaged 77 °F (25 °C).

Mean body temperature of active individuals measured in nature. A measurement of the animal, not a setting for a thermostat.

Feeding

A prey item should be no wider than the space between the animal's eyes.

Widely used across reptile husbandry references. The stated reason is that the gap approximates the width of the throat, so wider prey is associated with impaction. This is established practice, not a measurement.

90kJ per day

Worked out for an animal of 982 g, the heaviest recorded for Red Wormlizard — so it is the top of the range, not a figure for a particular animal. Weigh yours and the number will be lower.

An upper estimate, not a feeding target, and not veterinary advice. The equation covers only what an animal burns staying alive, so a growing, gravid or recovering animal needs more — and it was measured on wild animals, which move far more than one in an enclosure. Body condition and a vet who knows the species are what a feeding decision should rest on. Where this comes from.

What nobody knows

These are not gaps in our research. No scientific dataset records them for this species — and saying so is information you cannot get from a reference that simply leaves a field out.

  • — Length snout to vent · adult male mean
  • — Length snout to vent · adult mean
  • — Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
  • — Female length · mean, nose to tail
  • — Length nose to tail · adult male mean
  • — Length nose to tail · adult mean
  • — Largest male · snout to vent
  • — Largest female · shell length
  • — Largest male · shell length
  • — Hatchling length · nose to tail
  • — Largest juvenile · shell length
  • — Egg length
  • — Egg width
  • — Body mass · adult female, mean
  • — Body mass at hatching
  • — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
  • — Eats arthropods
  • — Eats vertebrates
  • — Eats plant matter
  • — How it hunts
  • — How the young develop
  • — Gestation or incubation
  • — First breeds from · youngest recorded
  • — First breeds by · oldest recorded
  • — Hatchling length · smallest recorded
  • — Hatchling length · largest recorded
  • — Age at first breeding · female
  • — Mature from · youngest recorded
  • — Mature by · oldest recorded
  • — Size at maturity · smallest recorded
  • — Size at maturity · largest recorded
  • — Colour on the back
  • — Pattern on the back
  • — Pupil
  • — Sex decided by
  • — Red List criteria
  • — Active season · shortest recorded
  • — Active season · longest recorded
  • — Density · lowest recorded
  • — Density · highest recorded
  • — Home range · largest recorded
  • — Active in
  • — Lowest it lives · above sea level

Others in Amphisbaenidae

Take this data

Everything on this page is available as data under CC BY 4.0 — use it freely, credit it, no permission needed.

This species as JSON · the whole dataset

Cite this page

The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia (2026). Amphisbaena alba. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/amphisbaena-alba

@misc{amphisbaena_alba_2026,
  title  = {Amphisbaena alba},
  author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/amphisbaena-alba}
}

Sources

  1. Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
  2. Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.
  3. Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.
  4. AnAge, Human Ageing Genomic Resources (de Magalhães et al.), used under CC BY 3.0.