Reptilia · Squamata
Aspidoscelis tigrisBaird & Girard, 1852
Tiger Whiptail
Photograph placed in the public domain, CC0, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating lizard from the Nearctic region, reaching 137 mm snout to vent.
Also called Western Whiptail.
Once published as Apidoscelis tigris, Aspidoscelis bacatus, Aspidoscelis canus, Aspidoscelis catalinensis, Aspidoscelis celeripes, Aspidoscelis estebanensis, Cnemidophorus bacatus, Cnemidophorus canus, Cnemidophorus catalinensis, Cnemidophorus tigris — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Teiidae › Aspidoscelis
- Grows to
- 137mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 8years
Longer than 72% 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
47 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
- 2007
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 8years
- Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradientmeasured
- 41.1°C
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 39.2°C103 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 37.1–41.3°C99–106 °F
Carey and Judge 2000, De Magalhaes & Costa 2009: 7.8 in nature, Degenhardt et al. 1996: 8; Slavens and Slavens 1999: 1 and 11 months - before maturity in some populations, Medica and Turner 1984: 94 months, Paulissen 2000: 7
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 137mm5.5 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 81.3mm3.25 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 81.3mm3.25 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 33mm1.25 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 33mm1.25 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 79.1g2.8 oz
- Body mass · a typical adult
- 18g0.63 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 0.5g0.02 oz
max 137 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
AnAge rates this record "acceptable"
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Active foraging
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Desert, Forest, Shrubland
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Active season · months of the year
- 5–11months
- Region
- Nearctic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 2130m
- Range size
- 2,084,184km²
- Density
- 1.25–185per hectare
- Home range · largest recorded
- 10,000m2
Arthropods and lizards (e.g., Rorabaugh and Lemos-Espinal 2016, Storm and Leonard 1995, Stebbins and McGinnis 2018)
e.g., Shenbrot et al. 1991, Scales and Butler 2015, Anderson and Karasov 1981
e.g., Rorabaugh and Lemos-Espinal 2016, Storm and Leonard 1995
e.g., Mesquita et al. 2016, Rorabaugh and Lemos-Espinal 2016
to 6000ft (Young 2011), 0-915 (Rorabaugh and Lemos-Espinal 2016), 730-1524 (Storm and Leonard 1995), below sea level to 2130 (Stebbins and McGinnis 2018)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Sex decided by
- Genes, XX/XY
- Average clutch
- 2.7eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–8eggs
- Mean clutch
- 1.3–4.1eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 2per year
- Clutches a year
- 1–3per year
- First breeds at
- 8–33months
1-7 (Stebbins and McGinnis 2012), means of 2-4.1 (Pike et al. 2008), means 1.915-4.1 (Mesquita et al. 2016), 3 (Shaw 1952, n=1), 1-5, mean 2.2 (Rorabaugh and Lemos-Espinal 2016), 1-4 (Storm and Leonard 1995), "1-4 (rarely 8)" (Stebbins and McGinnis 2018), 2-5, increasing with body size (Walker 2019, elsewhere 1-4, mean 2.2), Smith et al. 2019 (1-3, mean 2), up to 5 (Grismer and Grismer 2022)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Laterata
- Subspecies
- Aspidoscelis tigris aethiops (COPE 1900) Aspidoscelis tigris dickersonae (VAN DENBURGH & SLEVIN 1921) Aspidoscelis tigris disparilis (DICKERSON 1919) Aspidoscelis tigris multiscutatus (COPE 1892) Aspidoscelis tigris mundus (CAMP 1916) Aspidoscelis tigris nigroriens (HENDRICKS & DIXON 1986) Aspidoscelis tigris pulcher (WILLIAMS, SMITH & CHRAPLIWY 1960) Aspidoscelis tigris punctatus (WALKER & MASLIN 1965) Aspidoscelis tigris punctilinealis (DICKERSON 1919) Aspidoscelis tigris rubidus (COPE 1892) Aspidoscelis tigris septentrionalis (BURGER 1950) Aspidoscelis tigris stejnegeri (VAN DENBURGH 1894) Aspidoscelis tigris tigris (BAIRD & GIRARD 1852) Aspidoscelis tigris variolosus (COPE 1892) Aspidoscelis tigris vividus (WALKER 1981)
- Described by
- Baird & Girard
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1852
- Type locality
- Mexico
Keeping one
21.5 in × 21.5 in × 13.5 in(55 × 55 × 34 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 5.5 in (137 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 106 °F (41.1 °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.
10kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 79 g, the heaviest recorded for Tiger 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 · adult female, mean
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — 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
- — Active in
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
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 tigris. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/aspidoscelis-tigris
@misc{aspidoscelis_tigris_2026,
title = {Aspidoscelis tigris},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/aspidoscelis-tigris}
}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.
- AnAge, Human Ageing Genomic Resources (de Magalhães et al.), used under CC BY 3.0.