All Angles Creatures
Squamata · AnolidaeEntry 1,462 of 21,572
Humble Anole, Anolis humilis

Reptilia · Squamata

Anolis humilisPeters, 1863

Humble Anole

Photograph placed in the public domain, CC0, via iNaturalist

A day-active, meat-eating lizard from the Neotropic region, reaching 50 mm snout to vent.

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

Reptilia › Squamata › Anolidae › Anolis

Grows to
50mm
greatest recorded
Eats
Carnivorous
Active
Diurnal
Lives up to
1.5years
Body length across Anolidae

Longer than only 18% of all species in Anolidae anyone has measured.

18% of 423 species are smaller82% 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

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
2012
Population trend
Stable

The animal itself

Limbs
Four legs
Venomous
No
Fangs
None
Longest recorded life
1.5years

only 1 of 305 recaptured after 1 year (Fitch 1973) and none after 18 months, assuming specimens were 6 months old I list 1.5, most do not survive for more than a year (Henderson 2010)

Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
24.65°C76 °F

mean body temperature of active individuals in nature

Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
21.5–27.8°C71–82 °F

body temperature of active animals in nature

Size

Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
50mm2 in

max 50 mm SVL (Feldman et al. 2016)

Length snout to vent · adult female mean
37.5mm1.5 in
Largest female · snout to vent
37.5mm1.5 in

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

Hatchling length · snout to vent
16.7mm0.7 in
Largest juvenile · snout to vent
16.7mm0.7 in
Body mass · greatestcomputed
2.66g0.09 oz

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

Body mass at hatchingmeasured
0.15g0.01 oz

How it lives

Diet
Carnivorous

Arthropods, "spiders, sowbugs, beetles, caterpillars, flies, termites, and centipedes." (Henderson 2010), insects (Leenders 2019)

How it hunts
Mixed

Sit and Wait (e.g., Cooper et al. 2013, Henderson 2010)/ active foraging (Flores et al. 1994)

Active
Diurnal

e.g., Pianka et al. 2017, sm pers. obs.

Where it lives
Arboreal, terrestrial

Leaf Litter and Arboreal/ mainly terrestrial, also low perches, especially by males (Leenders 2019), "primarily terrestrial with a mean perch height of 36.5 cm" (Perez-Martinez et al. 2021)

Habitat
Forest
Biome
Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
Active season · months of the year
12months
Region
Neotropic
Mainland or island
Mainland
Highest it lives · above sea level
1900m

0-2900ft (Henderson 2010), near sea level to 1900 m (Leenders 2019)

Range size
72,020km²
Density
212–13,183per hectare

Breeding

Reproduction
Oviparous
Average clutch
1.07eggs
Eggs or young per clutch
1–2eggs

means 1-1.13 (Mesquita et al. 2016), 1 (Henderson 2010)

Mean clutch
1–1.13eggs
Clutches a year
1–15per year
First breeds at
4–6months

Naming and history

Suborder
Sauria
Infraorder
Pleurodonta
Subspecies
No
Described by
Peters
Moved to another genus · since it was first described
No
Described in
1863
Type locality
Panama

Keeping one

7.75 in × 7.75 in × 7.75 in(20 × 20 × 20 cm)

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

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

Recorded both on the ground and climbing, so this is the larger of the two rules in every dimension.

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 in (50 mm), at 4 × 4 × 4 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.

Active animals measured in the wild averaged 76 °F (24.7 °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.

0kJ per day

Worked out for an animal of 3 g, the heaviest recorded for Humble 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
  • — Eats arthropods
  • — Eats vertebrates
  • — Eats plant matter
  • — How the young develop
  • — Gestation or incubation
  • — Clutches in a year
  • — 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
  • — 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 humilis. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/anolis-humilis

@misc{anolis_humilis_2026,
  title  = {Anolis humilis},
  author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/anolis-humilis}
}

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.