Reptilia · Squamata
Anolis equestrisMerrem, 1820
Knight anole
Photograph by Josiah Londerée, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A tree-dwelling, day-active, omnivorous lizard from the Neotropic region, reaching 190 mm snout to vent.
Also called Cuban Giant Anole.
Once published as Deiroptyx equestris — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Anolidae › Anolis
- Grows to
- 190mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Omnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 16.5years
Longer than 99% of all species in Anolidae anyone has measured.
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
42 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
- 2016
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 16.5years
- Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradientmeasured
- 30.7°C
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 30.7°C
Carey and Judge 2000, De Magalhaes & Costa 2009, Slavens and Slavens 1999, Henderson & Powell 2009: 16 and 6 months (in captivity); 149 months (Andrew Durso in "Anole Annals" (http://www.anoleannals.org/2013/06/27/fill-in-the-blank-obscure-anole-life-history-traits/)
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 190mm7.5 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 142mm5.5 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 142mm5.5 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 45mm1.75 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 45mm1.75 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 134.9g4.8 oz
- Body mass · a typical adult
- 56g2 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 2.8g0.1 oz
max 190 mm SVL (Feldman et al. 2016)
snout-vent length; the source column mixes this with straight carapace length
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
AnAge rates this record "acceptable"
How it lives
- Diet
- Omnivorous
- How it hunts
- Mixed
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Arboreal
- Habitat
- Forest
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Dry Broadleaf Forests
- Active season · months of the year
- 12months
- Region
- Neotropic
- Mainland or island
- Found only on islands
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1000m
- Range size
- 60,239km²
- Density · highest recorded
- 29.5per hectare
fruits, insects and small vertebrates - Schettino 1999, Dalrymple 1980, Zug 2013
Zug 2013
e.g., Lando and Williams 1969
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 1eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 12per year
- Clutches a year
- 1–12per year
- First breeds at
- 9months
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Pleurodonta
- Subspecies
- Anolis equestris equestris MERREM 1820 Anolis equestris brujensis GARRIDO 2001 Anolis equestris buidei SCHWARTZ & GARRIDO 1972 Anolis equestris cincoleguas GARRIDO 1981 Anolis equestris cyaneus GARRIDO & ESTRADA 2001 Anolis equestris juraguensis SCHWARTZ & GARRIDO 1972 Anolis equestris persparsus SCHWARTZ & GARRIDO 1972 Anolis equestris potior SCHWARTZ & THOMAS 1975 Anolis equestris sabinalensis GARRIDO & MORENO 2001 Anolis equestris thomasi SCHWARTZ 1958 Anolis equestris verreonensis SCHWARTZ & GARRIDO 1972
- Described by
- Merrem
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1820
- Type locality
- Cuba
Keeping one
2 ft 6 in × 18.5 in × 2 ft 6 in(76 × 48 × 76 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better.
The standard sizes climbing species at 4 × 2.5 × 4 times snout-vent length.
Lives in vegetation, so height and climbing structure matter more than floor space.
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 7.5 in (190 mm), at 4 × 2.5 × 4 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
In a laboratory thermal gradient this species settled at 87 °F (30.7 °C).
Preferred body temperature, recorded in a laboratory gradient where the animal could choose freely. 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.
15kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 135 g, the heaviest recorded for Knight 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 · adult female, mean
- — Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Mean clutch · smallest reported
- — Mean clutch · largest reported
- — 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
- — Population trend
- — Red List criteria
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — 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 equestris. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/anolis-equestris
@misc{anolis_equestris_2026,
title = {Anolis equestris},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/anolis-equestris}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.
- Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.
- AnAge, Human Ageing Genomic Resources (de Magalhães et al.), used under CC BY 3.0.