Reptilia · Squamata
Caribicus warreniSchwartz, 1970
Haitian giant Galliwasp
Photograph placed in the public domain, CC0, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, active by day or night, meat-eating lizard from the Neotropic region, reaching 285 mm snout to vent.
Also called Hispaniolan Giant Galliwasp.
Once published as Celestus warreni, Diploglossus warreni — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Diploglossidae › Caribicus
- Grows to
- 285mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Lives up to
- 17years
Longer than 91% of all species in Diploglossidae 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 64 to 340 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
33 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
- Vulnerable
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2015
- Population trend
- Decreasing
- Red List criteria
- B1ab(iii)
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 17years
Slavens and Slavens 1999, Henderson & Powell 2009 (captive), Corry et al. 2010 (10, probably longer), https://www.nashvillezoo.org/galliwasp-conservation: 17 years (also cited in Stark et al. 2020)
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 285mm11 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 40.5mm1.5 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 599.6g1.3 lb
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 1.6g0.06 oz
max 285 mm SVL (Feldman et al. 2016), max 300 mm (Landestoy et al. 2022)
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Sit and wait
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Region
- Neotropic
- Mainland or island
- Found only on islands
- Elevation · above sea level
- 45–702m
- Range size
- 1519km²
Invertebrates and lizards (e.g., Corry et al. 2010), carnivore (Rodda 2020)
Banfi et al. 2023
(e.g., Rodda 2020) / nocturnal and crepuscular (Corry et al. 2010)
Leaf litter (see Sources (general) column)
IUCN (45 to 702)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Average clutch
- 21
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 8–34eggs
- First breeds at
- 36–48months
midpoint of the reported range — Meiri, 2024, Glob. Ecol. Biogeogr., 33:e13812
8-34 (Corry et al. 2010)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Anguimoprha
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Schwartz
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1970
- Type locality
- Haiti
Keeping one
Haitian giant Galliwasp is assessed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. Species at risk in the wild are often covered by CITES and by national law, which decide what may be bought, sold, moved across a border or kept at all — and captive-bred and wild-caught animals are usually treated differently. Check the rules where you are before acquiring one. Nothing below is a judgement about keeping this species; it is what a published welfare standard says about space, and what the animal itself was measured doing.
3 ft 9 in × 3 ft 9 in × 2 ft 4 in(114 × 114 × 71 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 11 in (285 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 Haitian giant Galliwasp. 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.
58kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 600 g, the heaviest recorded for Haitian giant Galliwasp — 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 female mean
- — 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 female · snout to vent
- — Largest male · snout to vent
- — Largest female · shell length
- — Largest male · shell length
- — 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
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — 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
- — 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
- — Habitat
- — Active in
Others in Diploglossidae
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). Caribicus warreni. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/caribicus-warreni
@misc{caribicus_warreni_2026,
title = {Caribicus warreni},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/caribicus-warreni}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- 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.
- Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.
- Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.