Reptilia · Squamata
Crotaphytus bicinctoresSmith & Tanner, 1972
Desert Collared Lizard
Photograph placed in the public domain, CC0, via iNaturalist
A rock-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating lizard from the Nearctic region, reaching 117 mm snout to vent.
Also called Mojave Black-collared Lizard.
Reptilia › Squamata › Crotaphytidae › Crotaphytus
- Grows to
- 117mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives
- Saxicolous
What is known
37 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
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 117mm4.5 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 88.5mm3.5 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 88.5mm3.5 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 36mm1.5 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 36mm1.5 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 61.47g2.2 oz
max 117 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
- Active foraging
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Saxicolous
- Habitat
- Desert, Rocky, Shrubland
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Active season · months of the year
- 7–8months
- Region
- Nearctic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 2290m
- Range size
- 556,346km²
Arthropods and lizards (e.g., Uta stansburiana, Cnemidophorus, Xantusia, Phrynosoma, McGuire 1996, see also Brennan and Holycross 2009, St. John 2002) / arthropods, snails, lizards snakes and berries (Stebbins and McGinnis 2012), arthropods, lizards and "some plant materials" (Stebbins and McGinnis 2018)
Jones and Lovich 2009
Diurnal, may be crespuscular in summer (Jones and Lovich 2009)
1524 (Storm and Leonard 1995), 0-2290 (Stebbins and McGinnis 2018)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 4.42eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–12eggs
- Mean clutch
- 3.46–5.4eggs
- Clutches a year
- 1–2per year
- First breeds at
- 8months
3.46, range 2-6 (Goldberg 2011) / 1-12 (Stebbins and McGinnis 2012) / 3-7 (St. John 2002, Stebbins and McGinnis 2018), 3-8 (Storm and Leonard 1995)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Pleurodonta
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Smith & Tanner
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1972
- Type locality
- USA
Keeping one
18.5 in × 18.5 in × 11.5 in(47 × 47 × 29 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.
Lives on rock, so stable hard surfaces and basking ledges suit it.
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 4.5 in (117 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 Desert Collared 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.
8kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 61 g, the heaviest recorded for Desert Collared 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
- — 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
- — 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
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
Others in Crotaphytidae
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). Crotaphytus bicinctores. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/crotaphytus-bicinctores
@misc{crotaphytus_bicinctores_2026,
title = {Crotaphytus bicinctores},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/crotaphytus-bicinctores}
}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.