Reptilia · Squamata
Aspidoscelis dixoniScudday, 1973
Gray Checkered Whiptail
Photograph by Sue Keefer, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, day-active lizard from the Nearctic region, reaching 104 mm snout to vent.
Reptilia › Squamata › Teiidae › Aspidoscelis
- Grows to
- 104mm
- greatest recorded
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 2years
- Lives
- Terrestrial
Longer than only 45% of all species in Teiidae 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 52.4 to 614 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
29 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
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 2years
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 39.9°C
about 2 (Walker et al. 1991, who also write "We infer that few if any of the members of this age class enter a 4th summer of life based upon the much larger mean SVL and BM noted for the August sample as compared with the May sample. Observations on 17 captive Cnemidophorus dixoni during 1989 and 1990 revealed that this form had a much shorter cage life expectancy than either diploid or triploid C. tesselatus")
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 104mm4 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 66.9mm2.75 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 34mm1.25 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 33.57g1.2 oz
Scudday 1973 (44 specimens max 98 mm, average length 84.3 mm), Walker et al. 1991 (gravid females: 67-97 mm, mean 82.12 ± 0.57), Cole et al. 2007 (81–104, mean 91.6 mm)
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Active season · months of the year
- 5–7months
- Region
- Nearctic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
(inferred from Scudday 1973), diurnal (Walker et al. 1991),
Scudday 1973
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–5eggs
- Mean clutch
- 2.9eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 1per year
- Clutches a year
- 2per year
- First breeds at
- 10months
walker et al. 1991
1-5, mean 2.90 ± 0.08 for 94 clutches (Walker et al. 1991)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Laterata
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Scudday
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1973
- Type locality
- USA
Keeping one
16.5 in × 16.5 in × 10 in(42 × 42 × 26 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 (104 mm), at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
No preferred body temperature has been recorded for Gray Checkered Whiptail. Rather than repeat a number from a care sheet, this page leaves it out.
Feeding
4kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 34 g, the heaviest recorded for Gray Checkered Whiptail — 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 female · snout to vent
- — Largest male · snout to vent
- — Largest female · shell length
- — Largest male · shell length
- — Hatchling length · nose to tail
- — Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — Body mass · adult female, mean
- — Body mass at hatching
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- — Diet
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How it hunts
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Average clutch
- — 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
- — Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- — Population trend
- — Red List criteria
- — Biome
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Habitat
- — Active in
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
- — Highest it lives · above sea level
- — Range size
Others in Teiidae
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). Aspidoscelis dixoni. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/aspidoscelis-dixoni
@misc{aspidoscelis_dixoni_2026,
title = {Aspidoscelis dixoni},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/aspidoscelis-dixoni}
}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.
- GBIF Secretariat. GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Used under CC BY 4.0. Common names aggregated from constituent checklists.
- Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.