Reptilia · Squamata
Aspidoscelis inornatusBaird, 1859
Little Striped Whiptail
Photograph by Michelle W. （鍾偉瑋）, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating lizard from the Nearctic region, reaching 77 mm snout to vent.
Once published as Apidoscelis inornata, Aspidoscelis gypsi, Cnemidophorus inornatus, Cnemidophorus perplexus — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Teiidae › Aspidoscelis
- Grows to
- 77mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives
- Terrestrial
Longer than only 20% 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
43 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
- Population trend
- Decreasing
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradientmeasured
- 40.2°C
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 39.1°C102 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 38–40.2°C100–104 °F
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 77mm3 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 54.9mm2.25 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 54.9mm2.25 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 31.5mm1.25 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 31.5mm1.25 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 13.18g0.46 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 11.57g0.41 oz
Shai Meiri, unpublished
snout-vent length; the source column mixes this with straight carapace length
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Active foraging
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest, Grassland, Shrubland
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Active season · months of the year
- 6–7months
- Region
- Nearctic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 300–2250m
- Range size
- 659,626km²
- Density
- 1.3–15per hectare
Arthropods and vertebrates (Greene 1982), arthropods and hatchling lizards (Lemos-Espinal and Smith 2007, Lemos-Espinal and Dixon 2013), arthropods (Stebbins and McGinnis 2018, Murphy 2018)
e.g., Shenbrot et al. 1991
e.g., Mesquita et al. 2016
300-2130 (Stebbins and McGinnis 2018)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Sex decided by
- Genes, XX/XY
- Average clutch
- 2.65eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–8eggs
- Mean clutch
- 2–4.3eggs
- Clutches a year
- 1–2per year
- First breeds at
- 10–22months
2 (Lemos-Espinal and Dixon 2013), 3 (Sullivan et al. 2013), mean 2.15 (Mesquita et al. 2016), 1-3 (Hibbitts and Hibbitts 2015, Stebbins and McGinnis 2018, Murphy 2018), Cruz-Elizalde et al. 2022b (4.3 ± 0.65 range 1–8, n = 14)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Laterata
- Subspecies
- Aspidoscelis inornatus arizonae (VAN DENBURGH 1896) Aspidoscelis inornatus chihuahuae (WRIGHT & LOWE 1993) Aspidoscelis inornatus cienegae (WRIGHT & LOWE 1993) Aspidoscelis inornatus gypsi (WRIGHT & LOWE 1993) Aspidoscelis inornatus heptagrammus (AXTELL 1961) Aspidoscelis inornatus juniperus (WRIGHT & LOWE 1993) Aspidoscelis inornatus llanuras (WRIGHT & LOWE 1993) Aspidoscelis inornatus inornatus (BAIRD 1859) Aspidoscelis inornatus octolineatus (BAIRD 1859) Aspidoscelis inornatus paululus (WILLIAMS 1968)
- Described by
- Baird
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1859
- Type locality
- Mexico
Keeping one
12 in × 12 in × 7.5 in(31 × 31 × 19 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 3 in (77 mm), at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
In a laboratory thermal gradient this species settled at 104 °F (40.2 °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.
2kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 13 g, the heaviest recorded for Little Striped 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.
Morphs
1 with peer-reviewed genetics behind them, 0 resting on breeder consensus. Most references present both with the same confidence.
- Adaptive reptile color variation and the evolution of the Mc1r gene. — Evolution 2004
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 at hatching
- — Longest recorded life
- — 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
- — Red List criteria
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
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 inornatus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/aspidoscelis-inornatus
@misc{aspidoscelis_inornatus_2026,
title = {Aspidoscelis inornatus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/aspidoscelis-inornatus}
}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.