All Angles Creatures
Squamata · LacertidaeEntry 6,278 of 21,572
Brauner’s Rock Lizard, Darevskia brauneri

Reptilia · Squamata

Darevskia brauneriMéhely, 1909

Brauner’s Rock Lizard

Photograph by Юрий Данилевский/Yuriy Danilevsky, CC BY, via Wikimedia Commons

A rock-dwelling, day-active, omnivorous lizard from the Palearctic region, reaching 71 mm snout to vent.

ReptiliaSquamataLacertidaeDarevskia

Grows to
71mm
greatest recorded
Eats
Omnivorous
Active
Diurnal
Lives up to
13years
Body length across Lacertidae

Longer than 58% of all species in Lacertidae anyone has measured.

58% of 372 species are smaller42% larger
35 mmthe whole family, smallest to largest444 mm

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 35 to 444 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

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
2008
Population trend
Stable

The animal itself

Limbs
Four legs
Venomous
No
Fangs
None
Longest recorded life
13years

Tsellarius and Tsellarius 2009: 13

Size

Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
71mm2.75 in

max 71 mm SVL (Feldman et al. 2016)

Length snout to vent · adult female mean
58.1mm2.25 in
Largest female · snout to vent
59.2mm2.25 in

snout-vent length; the source column mixes this with straight carapace length

Hatchling length · snout to vent
26mm1 in
Largest juvenile · snout to vent
26mm1 in
Body mass · greatestcomputed
8.32g0.29 oz

computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed

Body mass at hatchingmeasured
0.49g0.02 oz

How it lives

Diet
Omnivorous

arthropods (Szczerbak 2003, Dunayev and Orlova 2023), omnivore: insects, fruit, juvenile Lacerta agilis (Golynsky and Doronin 2014)

How it hunts
Active foraging

Dunayev and Orlova 2023

Active
Diurnal

e.g., Dunayev and Orlova 2023

Where it lives
Saxicolous
Habitat
Forest, Rocky
Biome
Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests
Region
Palearctic
Mainland or island
Mainland
Highest it lives · above sea level
1800m

500-1800, but also mention seashore (Dunayev and Orlova 2023)

Range size
47,236km²

Breeding

Reproduction
Oviparous
Average clutch
4eggs
Eggs or young per clutch
1–6eggs

1-6 (Dunayev and Orlova 2023)

Mean clutch
4eggs
Clutches a year
1per year

Naming and history

Suborder
Sauria
Infraorder
Laterata
Subspecies
Darevskia brauneri brauneri (MÉHELY 1909) Darevskia brauneri myusserica DORONIN 2011
Described by
Méhely
Moved to another genus · since it was first described
Yes
Described in
1909
Type locality
Russia

Keeping one

11 in × 11 in × 7 in(28 × 28 × 18 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 2.75 in (71 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 Brauner’s Rock 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.

1kJ per day

Worked out for an animal of 8 g, the heaviest recorded for Brauner’s Rock 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
  • 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
  • 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 Lacertidae

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). Darevskia brauneri. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/darevskia-brauneri

@misc{darevskia_brauneri_2026,
  title  = {Darevskia brauneri},
  author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/darevskia-brauneri}
}

Sources

  1. Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
  2. Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.
  3. Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.