Reptilia · Squamata
Bradypodion melanocephalumGray, 1865
Kwazulu Dwarf Chameleon
Photograph by Sunčana Bradley, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A tree-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating chameleon from the Afrotropic region, reaching 76 mm snout to vent.
Also called Black-headed Dwarf Chameleon.
Once published as Microsaura melanocephala — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Chamaeleonidae › Bradypodion
- Grows to
- 76mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 3.4years
Longer than 51% of all chameleons 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 18.2 to 300 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
35 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
- Near Threatened
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2021
- Population trend
- Decreasing
- Red List criteria
- B1b(iii)
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 3.4years
Myhrvold, Baldridge, Chan, Sivam, Freeman, and Ernest, 2015, Ecology, 96:3109-3109
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 76mm3 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 53mm2 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 55.7mm2.25 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 20mm0.8 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 20mm0.8 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 9.4g0.33 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 0.2g0.01 oz
max 76 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
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Arboreal
- Habitat
- Savanna
- Biome
- Montane Grasslands & Savannas
- Region
- Afrotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 150m
- Range size
- 21,791km²
invertebrates, negligible amounts of vegetation (Da Silva et al. 2016; appendix), Dollion et al. 2017 report prey size
deduced from da Silva and Tolley 2013
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Average clutch
- 14.5eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 10–19eggs
e.g., Reissig 2014
14 (Reissig 2014, n=1)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Acrodontia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Gray
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1865
- Type locality
- South Africa
Keeping one
12 in × 7.5 in × 12 in(30 × 19 × 30 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better.
The standard sizes climbing species at 4 × 2.5 × 4 times snout-vent length.
Lives in vegetation, so height and climbing structure matter more than floor space.
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 (76 mm), at 4 × 2.5 × 4 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
No preferred body temperature has been recorded for Kwazulu Dwarf Chameleon. Rather than repeat a number from a care sheet, this page leaves it out.
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.
1kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 9 g, the heaviest recorded for Kwazulu Dwarf Chameleon — 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 · adult female, mean
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How it hunts
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Mean clutch · smallest reported
- — Mean clutch · largest reported
- — Clutches in a year
- — Clutches a year · fewest
- — Clutches a year · most
- — First breeds from · youngest recorded
- — First breeds by · oldest recorded
- — 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
- — Body temp in the wild · lowest mean recorded
- — Body temp in the wild · highest mean recorded
- — Colour on the back
- — Pattern on the back
- — Pupil
- — Sex decided by
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
Others in Chamaeleonidae
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). Bradypodion melanocephalum. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/bradypodion-melanocephalum
@misc{bradypodion_melanocephalum_2026,
title = {Bradypodion melanocephalum},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/bradypodion-melanocephalum}
}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.
- Moura, M. R. et al. TetrapodTraits: a database of 33,281 tetrapod species. Used under CC BY 4.0. Observed values only; this encyclopedia does not publish its imputed predictions.