All Angles Creatures
Squamata · ChamaeleonidaeEntry 3,544 of 21,572
Brygoo's Chameleon, Brookesia brygooi

Reptilia · Squamata

Brookesia brygooiRaxworthy & Nussbaum, 1995

Brygoo's Chameleon

Photograph placed in the public domain, CC0, via iNaturalist

A ground-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating chameleon from the Madagascan region, reaching 52 mm snout to vent.

Also called Brygoo's Leaf Chameleon, Brygoo’s chameleon.

ReptiliaSquamataChamaeleonidaeBrookesia

Grows to
52mm
greatest recorded
Eats
Carnivorous
Active
Diurnal
Lives
Terrestrial
Body length across Chamaeleonidae

Longer than only 20% of all chameleons anyone has measured.

20% of 227 species are smaller80% larger
18.2 mmthe whole family, smallest to largest300 mm

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

31 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
2011

The animal itself

Limbs
Four legs
Venomous
No
Fangs
None

Size

Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
52mm2 in

max 52 mm SVL (Feldman et al. 2016)

Length snout to vent · adult female mean
49mm2 in
Largest female · snout to vent
49mm2 in

snout-vent length; the source column mixes this with straight carapace length

Body mass · greatestcomputed
3.25g0.11 oz

computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed

How it lives

Diet
Carnivorous

invertebrates (Rodda 2020)

Active
Diurnal

eg.., Mori et al. 2014

Where it lives
Terrestrial

Leaf litter / forest floor (Mori et al. 2014)

Habitat
Forest
Biome
Tropical & Subtropical Dry Broadleaf Forests
Region
Madagascan
Mainland or island
Found only on islands
Elevation · above sea level
80–180m
Range size
146,277km²

Breeding

Reproduction
Oviparous
Average clutch
3.5eggs
Eggs or young per clutch
2–5eggs
Clutches a year
4per year
First breeds at
12months

Naming and history

Suborder
Sauria
Infraorder
Acrodontia
Subspecies
No
Described by
Raxworthy & Nussbaum
Moved to another genus · since it was first described
No
Described in
1995
Type locality
Madagascar

Keeping one

8.25 in × 8.25 in × 5 in(21 × 21 × 13 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 2 in (52 mm), at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.

No preferred body temperature has been recorded for Brygoo's 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 3 g, the heaviest recorded for Brygoo's 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 · snout to vent
  • Hatchling length · nose to tail
  • Largest juvenile · snout to vent
  • Largest juvenile · shell length
  • Egg length
  • Egg width
  • Body mass · a typical adult
  • Body mass · adult female, mean
  • Body mass at hatching
  • Longest recorded life
  • 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
  • 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
  • Population trend
  • Red List criteria
  • Active season · shortest recorded
  • Active season · longest recorded
  • Density · lowest recorded
  • Density · highest recorded
  • Home range · largest recorded
  • Active in

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). Brookesia brygooi. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/brookesia-brygooi

@misc{brookesia_brygooi_2026,
  title  = {Brookesia brygooi},
  author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/brookesia-brygooi}
}

Sources

  1. Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
  2. Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.
  3. Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.