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Squamata · AnolidaeEntry 1,420 of 21,572
Barbados anole, Anolis extremus

Reptilia · Squamata

Anolis extremusGarman, 1887

Barbados anole

Photograph by Roland Taylor, CC BY, via iNaturalist

A tree-dwelling, day-active, omnivorous lizard from the Neotropic region, reaching 85 mm snout to vent.

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

ReptiliaSquamataAnolidaeAnolis

Grows to
85mm
greatest recorded
Eats
Omnivorous
Active
Diurnal
Lives up to
6.7years
Body length across Anolidae

Longer than 80% of all species in Anolidae anyone has measured.

80% of 423 species are smaller20% 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

34 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
2015

The animal itself

Limbs
Four legs
Venomous
No
Fangs
None
Longest recorded life
6.7years

Myhrvold, Baldridge, Chan, Sivam, Freeman, and Ernest, 2015, Ecology, 96:3109-3109

Size

Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
85mm3.25 in

max 85 mm SVL (Feldman et al. 2016)

Length snout to vent · adult female mean
51mm2 in
Largest female · snout to vent
51mm2 in

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

Hatchling length · snout to vent
23mm0.9 in
Largest juvenile · snout to vent
23mm0.9 in
Body mass · greatestcomputed
12.66g0.45 oz

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

Body mass at hatchingmeasured
0.45g0.02 oz

How it lives

Diet
Omnivorous

mainly insects, also fruit and nectar (Henderson and Powell 2009, Murphy et al. 2018), arthropods and "occasionally fruit (Daltry 2009), arthropods and fruit (Senaris et al. 2018)

How it hunts
Sit and wait

Daltry 2009

Active
Diurnal

e.g., Murphy et al. 2018, Senaris et al. 2018

Where it lives
Arboreal
Habitat
Forest
Biome
Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
Region
Neotropic
Mainland or island
Mainland
Elevation · above sea level
69–1272m
Range size
439km²

Breeding

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

one or two (Daltry 2009, Senaris et al. 2018)

Naming and history

Suborder
Sauria
Infraorder
Pleurodonta
Subspecies
No
Described by
Garman
Moved to another genus · since it was first described
No
Described in
1887
Type locality
Barbados

Keeping one

13.5 in × 8.5 in × 13.5 in(34 × 21 × 34 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 3.25 in (85 mm), at 4 × 2.5 × 4 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.

No preferred body temperature has been recorded for Barbados anole. Rather than repeat a number from a care sheet, this page leaves it out.

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.

2kJ per day

Worked out for an animal of 13 g, the heaviest recorded for Barbados 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
  • Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
  • 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
  • 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
  • Body temp in the wild · lowest mean recorded
  • Body temp in the wild · highest mean recorded
  • Colour on the back
  • Pattern on the back
  • Pupil
  • Sex decided by
  • Population trend
  • Red List criteria
  • Active season · shortest recorded
  • Active season · longest recorded
  • Density · lowest recorded
  • Density · highest 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 extremus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/anolis-extremus

@misc{anolis_extremus_2026,
  title  = {Anolis extremus},
  author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/anolis-extremus}
}

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. Moura, M. R. et al. TetrapodTraits: a database of 33,281 tetrapod species. Used under CC BY 4.0. Observed values only; this encyclopedia does not publish its imputed predictions.