Reptilia · Squamata
Basiliscus vittatusWiegmann, 1828
Brown Basilisk
Photograph by Nick Tobler (Cowturtle), CC BY, via iNaturalist
A day-active, omnivorous lizard from the Neotropic region, reaching 225 mm snout to vent.
Reptilia › Squamata › Corytophanidae › Basiliscus
- Grows to
- 225mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Omnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 9.1years
What is known
48 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
- 9.1years
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 36.15°C97 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 34.7–37.6°C94–100 °F
Carey and Judge 2000, Savage 2002, De Magalhaes & Costa 2009: 9.1, Slavens and Slavens 1999, Campbell 1999 ( 5 years 11 months in captivity), 2-3 (Henderson 2010), 2% survive more than 2 years (Heimes 2022)
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 225mm8.75 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 118.9mm4.75 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 117.8mm4.75 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 37.5mm1.5 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 37.5mm1.5 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 393.7g13.9 oz
- Body mass · a typical adult
- 60.87g2.1 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 1.6g0.06 oz
max 225 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
- Mixed
- 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
- 1600m
- Range size
- 880,662km²
- Density
- 5–36.1per hectare
- Home range · largest recorded
- 13.4m2
Omnivorous, juveniles primarily insects (Savage 2002, Fitch 1973 - based on Hirth 1963), insects and vegetation (Guyer and Donnelly 2005), arthropods (Hirth 1963), shifts ontonogenetically from invertebrates to plants (Ramirez-Bautista et al. 2014), "Young eat insects and arachnids. Adults are omnivorous and eat fruits, seeds, grasses, invertebrates and small vertebrates" (Henderson 2010) see also McCranie 2018, Leenders 2019
Sit and Wait (e.g., Hirth 1963, Cooper et al. 2013) / active (Leenders 2019)
(e.g., Ramirez-Bautista et al. 2014, McCranie 2018, Brown et al. 2019), strictly diurnal and heliothermic (Heimes 2022)
Terrestrial and Arboreal, and aquatic (Duellman 1961), arboreal (Duellman 1963), most terrestrial of basilisks (Leenders 2019)
0-360ft (Henderson 2010), 0-1400 (McCranie 2018), max 1600 (Heimes 2022)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Sex decided by
- Genes, XX/XY
- Gestation or incubation
- 60days
- Average clutch
- 5.4eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 2–18eggs
- Mean clutch
- 3.9–6.9eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 3.75per year
- Clutches a year
- 1–6.5per year
- First breeds at
- 6–12months
- Age at first breeding · female
- 228days
2-6, mean 4.2, Hirth 1963, 6-12 (Ramirez-Bautista et al. 2014), 2-18 (Henderson 2010, McCranie 2018, Heimes 2022), 5-9, mean 6 (Varon 2017, n=18), 2-13 (Brown et al. 2019), 5-9, mean 6.2 (Suarez-Varon et al. 2019), average "about 4" (Heimes 2022)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Pleurodonta
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Wiegmann
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1828
- Type locality
- Mexico
Keeping one
2 ft 11 in × 2 ft 11 in × 22 in(90 × 90 × 56 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 8.75 in (225 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 97 °F (36.2 °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.
40kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 394 g, the heaviest recorded for Brown Basilisk — 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
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How the young develop
- — Hatchling length · smallest recorded
- — Hatchling length · largest recorded
- — 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 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 vittatus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/basiliscus-vittatus
@misc{basiliscus_vittatus_2026,
title = {Basiliscus vittatus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/basiliscus-vittatus}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- AnAge, Human Ageing Genomic Resources (de Magalhães et al.), used under CC BY 3.0.
- 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.