Reptilia · Squamata
Corytophanes hernandesiiDeppe, 1830
Hernandez’s Helmeted Basilisk
Photograph by Abraham A. Gómez Landero, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A day-active, meat-eating lizard from the Neotropic region, reaching 120 mm snout to vent.
Once published as Corytophanes hernandezi — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Corytophanidae › Corytophanes
- Grows to
- 120mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives
- Arboreal, terrestrial
What is known
34 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
- 2012
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 120mm4.75 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 86.5mm3.5 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 104.5mm4 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 37.5mm1.5 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 37.5mm1.5 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 51.26g1.8 oz
max 120 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
- How it hunts
- Sit and wait
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Arboreal, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Region
- Neotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1400m
- Range size
- 161,178km²
Invertebrates: arthropods (Lemos-Espinal and Dixon 2013, Heimes 2022), insects (Ramirez-Bautista et al. 2014)
Sit and Wait
e.g., Ortiz-Medina et al. 2017, McCranie 2018
Terrestrial (Campbell) / Arboreal (Stafford and Meyer 2000, Lee 2000, Kohler 2003, Duellman 1965, Ramirez-Bautista et al. 2014, Ortiz-Medina et al. 2017) / Leaf Litter (Canseco-Marquez et al. 2000), mostly arboreal but also terrestrial (Heimes 2022)
0-1400 (Ramirez-Bautista et al. 2014), 0-1300 (Galdamez et al. 2016), 150-1000 (McCranie 2018), max 1400 (Heimes 2022)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 3.5eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 3–7eggs
- Mean clutch
- 3–4eggs
7 (Lemos-Espinal and Dixon 2013), 3-7 (Calderon 2002, McCranie 2018, Heimes 2022), 4 (Ramirez-Bautista et al. 2014), 3-4 (Suarez-Varon et al. 2019)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Pleurodonta
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Deppe
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1830
- Type locality
- Mexico
Keeping one
19 in × 19 in × 19 in(48 × 48 × 48 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better.
The standard sizes ground species at 4 × 4 × 2.5 and climbing species at 4 × 2.5 × 4 times snout-vent length.
Recorded both on the ground and climbing, so this is the larger of the two rules in every dimension.
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 4.75 in (120 mm), at 4 × 4 × 4 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
No preferred body temperature has been recorded for Hernandez’s Helmeted Basilisk. 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.
6kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 51 g, the heaviest recorded for Hernandez’s Helmeted Basilisk — 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
- — 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 the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — 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
- — Red List criteria
- — 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 Corytophanidae
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). Corytophanes hernandesii. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/corytophanes-hernandesii
@misc{corytophanes_hernandesii_2026,
title = {Corytophanes hernandesii},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/corytophanes-hernandesii}
}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.