Reptilia · Squamata
Basiliscus plumifronsCope, 1875
Green Basiisk
Photograph by Josiah Londerée, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A day-active, omnivorous lizard from the Neotropic region, reaching 250 mm snout to vent.
Reptilia › Squamata › Corytophanidae › Basiliscus
- Grows to
- 250mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Omnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 13years
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
- 13years
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 31.7°C89 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 31.7°C
Carey and Judge 2000, De Magalhaes & Costa 2009: 13, Slavens and Slavens 1999, National Geographic: to 13 in captivity, Henderson 2010: 6 years
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 250mm9.75 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 152.6mm6 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 125.5mm5 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 38.5mm1.5 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 38.5mm1.5 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 554g1.2 lb
- Body mass · a typical adult
- 66.2g2.3 oz
max 250 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
- Omnivorous
- How it hunts
- Sit and wait
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Semi-aquatic
- Habitat
- Forest, Wetlands
- 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
- 780m
- Range size
- 107,491km²
- Density
- 200–400per hectare
Omnivorous, juveniles primarily insects (Savage 2002), invertebrates, vertebrates (even bats!) and vegetation (Guyer and Donnelly 2005, see Hirth 1963b, McCranie 2018), "insects, newly hatched iguanas and ctenosaurs, small lizards, snakes, small birds, small mammals, fish, flowers, and fruits." (Henderson 2010)
e.g., Cooper et al. 2013
e.g., Henderson 2010, McCranie 2018, Leenders 2019
Semi Aquatic and Arboreal (e.g., Leenders 2019)
40-225 (McCranie 2018), near sea level to 780 (Leenders 2019), 30-800 (Zeas and Alvarado 2015)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 11eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 4–18eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 4.5per year
- Clutches a year
- 4–5per year
- First breeds at
- 20months
16.5 (Van Wilgen and Richardson 2012), 6-18 (Henderson 2010), 4-17 (McCranie 2018, Leenders 2019), 5-17 (Zeas and Alvarado 2015)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Pleurodonta
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Cope
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1875
- Type locality
- Costa Rica
Keeping one
3 ft 3 in × 3 ft 3 in × 2 ft 1 in(100 × 100 × 63 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 9.75 in (250 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 89 °F (31.7 °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.
54kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 554 g, the heaviest recorded for Green Basiisk — 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
- — 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
- — Mean clutch · smallest reported
- — Mean clutch · largest reported
- — 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 Corytophanidae
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). Basiliscus plumifrons. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/basiliscus-plumifrons
@misc{basiliscus_plumifrons_2026,
title = {Basiliscus plumifrons},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/basiliscus-plumifrons}
}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.