All Angles Creatures
Squamata · AnolidaeEntry 1,287 of 21,572

Reptilia · Squamata

Anolis agassiziStejneger, 1900

Agassiz's Anole

No photograph of this species exists under a license anyone may reuse. It gets the same page regardless.

A rock-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating lizard from the Neotropic region, reaching 127 mm snout to vent.

Once published as Dactyloa agassizi — those names reach this page.

ReptiliaSquamataAnolidaeAnolis

Grows to
127mm
greatest recorded
Eats
Carnivorous
Active
Diurnal
Lives
Saxicolous
Body length across Anolidae

Longer than 93% of all species in Anolidae anyone has measured.

93% of 423 species are smaller7% larger
33.5 mmthe whole family, smallest to largest191 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 33.5 to 191 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

37 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
2013
Population trend
Stable

The animal itself

Limbs
Four legs
Venomous
No
Fangs
None
Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
30.6°C87 °F

mean body temperature of active individuals in nature

Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
30.6°C

body temperature of active animals in nature

Size

Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
127mm5 in

Shai Meiri, unpublished

Length snout to vent · adult female mean
77.1mm3 in
Largest female · snout to vent
77.1mm3 in

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

Hatchling length · snout to vent
26.35mm1 in
Largest juvenile · snout to vent
26.4mm1 in
Body mass · greatestcomputed
41.25g1.5 oz

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

Body mass at hatchingmeasured
0.52g0.02 oz

How it lives

Diet
Carnivorous

Invertebrates and bird droppings (Lopez-Victoria 2006), mostly "insects and excrements of marine birds" (Lopez-Victoria et al. 2011), also earthworms, (see also Vasquez-Restrepo 2018)

How it hunts
Mixed

Zug 2013

Active
Diurnal

Diurnal / Diurnal but hunts near lamplights in human settlements at night (Vasquez-Restrepo 2018)

Where it lives
Saxicolous

e.g., Vasquez-Restrepo 2018

Biome
Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
Region
Neotropic
Mainland or island
Found only on islands
Highest it lives · above sea level
50m

0-50 m (Cardona-Botero et al. 2013)

Range size
7.7km²
Density · highest recorded
1700per hectare

Breeding

Reproduction
Oviparous
Average clutch
1eggs
Eggs or young per clutch
1eggs
Mean clutch
1eggs

Naming and history

Suborder
Sauria
Infraorder
Pleurodonta
Subspecies
No
Described by
Stejneger
Moved to another genus · since it was first described
No
Described in
1900
Type locality
Colombia

Keeping one

20 in × 20 in × 12.5 in(51 × 51 × 32 cm)

Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better.

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

Lives on rock, so stable hard surfaces and basking ledges suit it.

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 5 in (127 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 87 °F (30.6 °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.

5kJ per day

Worked out for an animal of 41 g, the heaviest recorded for Agassiz's Anole — 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 · a typical adult
  • Body mass · adult female, mean
  • Longest recorded life
  • Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
  • Eats arthropods
  • Eats vertebrates
  • Eats plant matter
  • How the young develop
  • Gestation or incubation
  • Clutches in a year
  • Clutches a year · fewest
  • Clutches a year · most
  • 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
  • Home range · largest recorded
  • Habitat
  • Active in
  • Lowest it lives · above sea level

Others in Anolidae

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). Anolis agassizi. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/anolis-agassizi

@misc{anolis_agassizi_2026,
  title  = {Anolis agassizi},
  author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/anolis-agassizi}
}

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.