All Angles Creatures
Squamata · AnolidaeEntry 1,329 of 21,572

Reptilia · Squamata

Anolis barkeriSchmidt, 1939

Barker's Anole

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

A day-active, meat-eating lizard from the Neotropic region, reaching 101 mm snout to vent.

Once published as Norops barkeri — those names reach this page.

ReptiliaSquamataAnolidaeAnolis

Grows to
101mm
greatest recorded
Eats
Carnivorous
Active
Diurnal
Lives
Semi-aquatic
Body length across Anolidae

Longer than 87% of all species in Anolidae anyone has measured.

87% of 423 species are smaller13% 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
Vulnerable
Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
2007
Population trend
Decreasing
Red List criteria
A2c+3c

The animal itself

Limbs
Four legs
Venomous
No
Fangs
None
Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
24.15°C75 °F

mean body temperature of active individuals in nature

Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
23.1–24.4°C74–76 °F

body temperature of active animals in nature

Size

Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
101mm4 in

max 101 mm SVL (Feldman et al. 2016)

Length snout to vent · adult female mean
68.5mm2.75 in
Largest female · snout to vent
68.5mm2.75 in

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

Hatchling length · snout to vent
30.82mm1.25 in
Largest juvenile · snout to vent
34mm1.25 in
Body mass · greatestcomputed
21.02g0.74 oz

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

How it lives

Diet
Carnivorous

invertebrates (Campbell 1973), Arthropods and Ramirez Bautista and Arizmendi 2004 write: "It also eats some molluscs such as gastropods and plant material (Birt et al., 2001, Ramirez-Bautista, 1977).", insects (Gray et al. 2016), arthropods, 5.9% plants (Cisneros-Bernal et al. 2019), insects (Heimes 2022)

Active
Diurnal

Diurnal / diurnal and crepuscular (Heimes 2022)

Where it lives
Semi-aquatic

Semi Aquatic and arboreal (Birt et al. 2001), semi aquatic (Leal et al. 2002, Schwartz 1978), semi aquatic saxicolous and arboreal (Heimes 2022)

Habitat
Forest, Wetlands
Biome
Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
Region
Neotropic
Mainland or island
Mainland
Elevation · above sea level
20–1100m

near sea level to 1100 (Heimes 2022)

Range size
36,542km²
Density
125–214per hectare

Breeding

Reproduction
Oviparous
Average clutch
1.5eggs
Eggs or young per clutch
1–2eggs

1 (Ramirez Bautista and Arizmendi 2004)

Mean clutch
1–2eggs

Naming and history

Suborder
Sauria
Infraorder
Pleurodonta
Subspecies
No
Described by
Schmidt
Moved to another genus · since it was first described
No
Described in
1939
Type locality
Mexico

Keeping one

Barker's Anole is assessed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. Species at risk in the wild are often covered by CITES and by national law, which decide what may be bought, sold, moved across a border or kept at all — and captive-bred and wild-caught animals are usually treated differently. Check the rules where you are before acquiring one. Nothing below is a judgement about keeping this species; it is what a published welfare standard says about space, and what the animal itself was measured doing.

16 in × 16 in × 10 in(40 × 40 × 25 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.

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 4 in (101 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 76 °F (24.2 °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.

3kJ per day

Worked out for an animal of 21 g, the heaviest recorded for Barker'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
  • Body mass at hatching
  • Longest recorded life
  • 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
  • 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
  • Active season · shortest recorded
  • Active season · longest recorded
  • Home range · largest recorded
  • Active in

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

@misc{anolis_barkeri_2026,
  title  = {Anolis barkeri},
  author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/anolis-barkeri}
}

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.