Reptilia · Squamata
Chamaesaura anguinaLinnaeus, 1758
Cape Grass Lizard
Photograph by Chris Vynbos, CC BY-SA, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating lizard from the Afrotropic region, reaching 153 mm snout to vent.
Also called Cape Snake Lizard.
Reptilia › Squamata › Cordylidae › Chamaesaura
- Grows to
- 152.5mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives
- Terrestrial
Longer than 91% of all species in Cordylidae 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 68 to 220 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
32 sourced facts, each taken from a named scientific dataset. How to read these.
Cited from a dataset unless a row is marked otherwise.
Two of these figures disagree
Body mass (adult female, mean) is given as 32.8, and Body mass (greatest) as 15.4 — but an average female cannot outweigh the heaviest animal recorded. They come from different sources and both are shown exactly as those sources give them.
Standing in the world
- Still living
- Extant
- Conservation status
- Least Concern
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2019
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Reduced
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 152.5mm6 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 125mm5 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 125mm5 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputeddisputed
- 15.41g0.54 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasureddisputed
- 32.75g1.2 oz
max 152.5 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
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Grassland, Shrubland
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas & Shrublands
- Region
- Afrotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 1083–2467m
- Range size
- 334,098km²
Arthropods (insects, Branch 2016)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Average clutch
- 6.41eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 2–17eggs
- Mean clutch
- 6.4eggs
- Clutches a year
- 1per year
e.g., Branch 2016
"a few" (Branch 2016), 9, 4-5 in the literature (Boycott 1990)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Scincoidea
- Subspecies
- Chamaesaura anguina anguina (LINNAEUS 1758) Chamaesaura anguina oligopholis LAURENT 1964
- Described by
- Linnaeus
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1758
Keeping one
2 ft × 2 ft × 15 in(61 × 61 × 38 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 6 in (152.5 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 Cape Grass Lizard. 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.
2kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 15 g, the heaviest recorded for Cape Grass 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 · 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 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
- — Clutches in a year
- — 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
- — Red List criteria
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Type locality
- — Active in
Others in Cordylidae
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). Chamaesaura anguina. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/chamaesaura-anguina
@misc{chamaesaura_anguina_2026,
title = {Chamaesaura anguina},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/chamaesaura-anguina}
}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.