Reptilia · Squamata
Darevskia unisexualisDarevsky, 1966
Unisexual Lizard
Photograph by TeklaLilith, CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons
A rock-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating lizard from the Saharo-Sindian region, reaching 73 mm snout to vent.
Also called White-Bellied Lizard.
Once published as Lacerta unisexualis — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Lacertidae › Darevskia
- Grows to
- 73.1mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 8years
Longer than 63% of all species in Lacertidae 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 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
40 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
- Near Threatened
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2008
- Population trend
- Decreasing
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 8years
Arakelyan et al. 2011, Arakelyan 2002: 7; Yakin and Tok 2015: 6, Arakelyan et al. 2013: 8
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 73.1mm3 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 60.9mm2.5 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 59.3mm2.25 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 27mm1 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 27mm1 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 9.07g0.32 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 0.49g0.02 oz
Shai Meiri, unpublished
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
- Saxicolous
- Habitat
- Rocky
- Biome
- Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests
- Active season · months of the year
- 4–6months
- Region
- Saharo-Sindian
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 1500–2300m
- Range size
- 79,947km²
Invertebrates ("Food consists of beetles, hymenopterans, flies, orthopterans, butterflies, spiders, woodlice, and myriapods.", Szczerbak 2003), see detailed analysis in Cicek et al. 2020
e.g., Cicek et al. 2020
1870-2000 (Arakelyan et al. 2013), 1700-2000 (Cicek et al. 2020)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Sex decided by
- Genes, ZW/ZZ
- Average clutch
- 5eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–10eggs
- Mean clutch
- 5eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 1.5per year
- Clutches a year
- 1–2per year
- First breeds at
- 36–48months
1-10 (Arakelyan et al. 2011), 2-7 (Szczerbak 2003)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Laterata
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Darevsky
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1966
- Type locality
- Armenia
Keeping one
11.5 in × 11.5 in × 7.25 in(29 × 29 × 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 3 in (73.1 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 Unisexual 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 9 g, the heaviest recorded for Unisexual 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 it hunts
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — 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
- — Red List criteria
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
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 unisexualis. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/darevskia-unisexualis
@misc{darevskia_unisexualis_2026,
title = {Darevskia unisexualis},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/darevskia-unisexualis}
}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.