Reptilia · Squamata
Aspidoscelis tesselatusSay, 1822
Common Checkered Whiptail
Photograph by Sue Keefer, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A day-active, meat-eating lizard from the Nearctic region, reaching 107 mm snout to vent.
Also called Diploid Colorado checkered whiptail.
Once published as Apidoscelis tesselata, Cnemidophorus grahamii, Cnemidophorus tesselatus — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Teiidae › Aspidoscelis
- Grows to
- 107mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 5years
Longer than only 48% 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
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
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 5years
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 39.9°C104 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 37.8–42°C100–108 °F
4 or older Degenhardt et al. 1996
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 107mm4.25 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 76.9mm3 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 76.9mm3 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 41.5mm1.75 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 41.5mm1.75 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 36.68g1.3 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 8.09g0.29 oz
max 107 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
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Active foraging
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Saxicolous, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest, Grassland, Shrubland
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Active season · months of the year
- 4–7months
- Region
- Nearctic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 250–2110m
- Range size
- 339,353km²
- Density
- 2–100per hectare
Arthropods (e.g., Punzo 2001, Mata-Silva et al. 2013, Stebbins and McGinnis 2018)
e.g., Mesquita et al. 2016
Saxicolous and Terrestrial (see Sources (general) column)
270-2110 (Stebbins and McGinnis 2018)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 4.05eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–8eggs
- Mean clutch
- 3.2–4.9eggs
- Clutches a year
- 1–2per year
- First breeds at
- 13–24months
3-5, mean 3.5 (Mata-Silva et al. 2010), 4-5, mean 4.5 (Walker et al. 2012), 2-6, mean 3.2 (Punzo 1982), means 3.23-3.24 (Mesquita et al. 2016), 1-8 (Hibbitts and Hibbitts 2015, Stebbins and McGinnis 2018)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Laterata
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Say
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1822
- Type locality
- USA
Keeping one
17 in × 17 in × 10.5 in(43 × 43 × 27 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.
Lives on rock, so stable hard surfaces and basking ledges suit it.
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 4.25 in (107 mm), at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
Active animals measured in the wild averaged 104 °F (39.9 °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.
5kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 37 g, the heaviest recorded for Common 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 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
- — 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
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 tesselatus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/aspidoscelis-tesselatus
@misc{aspidoscelis_tesselatus_2026,
title = {Aspidoscelis tesselatus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/aspidoscelis-tesselatus}
}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.