Reptilia · Squamata
Callisaurus draconoidesBlainville, 1835
Zebra-tailed Lizard
Photograph by Bill Levine, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating lizard from the Nearctic region, reaching 109 mm snout to vent.
Once published as Callisaurus crinitus — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Phrynosomatidae › Callisaurus
- Grows to
- 109mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 5.9years
Longer than 79% of all species in Phrynosomatidae 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 47 to 175 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
44 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
- 5.9years
- Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradientmeasured
- 35.8–38.1°C96–101 °F
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 39.3°C103 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 37.1–41.5°C99–107 °F
71 months (Tanner and Krogh 1975)
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 109mm4.25 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 67.9mm2.75 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 67.9mm2.75 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 28.5mm1 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 28.5mm1 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 39.74g1.4 oz
max 109 mm (e.g., Perez-Delgadillo et al. 2021, Heimes 2022)
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
- How it hunts
- Sit and wait
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Desert, Rocky, Shrubland
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Active season · months of the year
- 6–12months
- Region
- Nearctic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1780m
- Range size
- 798,758km²
- Density
- 0.02–16.5per hectare
- Home range · largest recorded
- 6000m2
Arthropods, other lizards and occasiounally plants (Stebbings 2003, Stebbins and McGinnis 2018, see also Rorabaugh and Lemos-Espinal 2016), Arthropods (Ortega-Rubio et al. 1995), Arthropods, 5.7% plants (Pianka 1986), arthropods and flowers (St. John 2002), Arthropods, 2.2%-6.5% plants (Pianka and Parker 1972), no evidence for deliberate consumption of plants (Tanner and Krogh 1975), mostly arthropods (Heimes 2022)
e.g., Mesquita et al. 2016, Scales and Butler 2015, Anderson and Karasov 1981
e.g., Rorabaugh and Lemos-Espinal 2016, Heimes 2022
(e.g., Mesquita et al. 2016, Korff and McHenry 2011, Scales and Butler 2015), saxicolous (Cavalcanti et al. 2023)
0-900 (Rorabaugh and Lemos-Espinal 2016), below sea level to 1520 (Stebbins and McGinnis 2018), near sea level to 1200 (Heimes 2022)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 4.34eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–15eggs
- Mean clutch
- 2.67–6eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 3per year
- Clutches a year
- 1–5per year
- First breeds at
- 9–24months
2-15 (Stebbins and McGinnis 2012, St. John 2002), mean 4.5 (Ramirez Bautista and Arizmendi 2004), 2-8, mean 4.42 (Pianka and Parker 1972), 3-6 (Tanner and Krogh 1975), 3-7, mean 4.5 (Vitt 1977), 3-8, mean 4.5 (Golberg 2013), means 2.67-6 (Mesquita et al. 2016), 2-4 mean 3.23 (Goldberg 2015, who reports values of 1-8 and means of 3-4.6 in the literature), 1-8, means 4-5 (Rorabaugh and Lemos-Espinal 2016), max 15 (Grismer and Grismer 2022), 1-15, in S. Baja mean 3.23 (Heimes 2022)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Pleurodonta
- Subspecies
- Callisaurus draconoides bogerti MARTIN DEL CAMPO 1943 Callisaurus draconoides brevipes BOGERT & DORSON 1942 Callisaurus draconoides carmenensis DICKERSON 1919 Callisaurus draconoides crinitus COPE 1896 Callisaurus draconoides draconoides BLAINVILLE 1835 Callisaurus draconoides inusitatus DICKERSON 1919 Callisaurus draconoides myurus RICHARDSON 1915 Callisaurus draconoides rhodostictus COPE 1896 Callisaurus draconoides ventralis (HALLOWELL 1852)
- Described by
- Blainville
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1835
- Type locality
- Mexico
Keeping one
17 in × 17 in × 10.5 in(44 × 44 × 27 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 4.25 in (109 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 96–101 °F (35.8–38.1 °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.
5kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 40 g, the heaviest recorded for Zebra-tailed Lizard — 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
- — Body mass at hatching
- — 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
- — Sex decided by
- — Red List criteria
- — Active in
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
Others in Phrynosomatidae
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). Callisaurus draconoides. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/callisaurus-draconoides
@misc{callisaurus_draconoides_2026,
title = {Callisaurus draconoides},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/callisaurus-draconoides}
}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.