Reptilia · Squamata
Delma imparFischer, 1882
Many-lined Delma
No photograph of this species exists under a license anyone may reuse. It gets the same page regardless.
A day-active, meat-eating lizard from the Australo-Pacific region, reaching 116 mm snout to vent.
Also called Striped Legless lizard.
Reptilia › Squamata › Pygopodidae › Delma
- Grows to
- 116mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 20years
Longer than only 43% of all species in Pygopodidae 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 64.5 to 315 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
41 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 9.7, and Body mass (greatest) as 6.2 — 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
- Endangered
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2017
- Population trend
- Decreasing
- Red List criteria
- B2ab(iii)
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 20years
- Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradientmeasured
- 26–29.3°C79–85 °F
Greer 2005: "In captivity, the species has lived as long as eight years and eight months (Banks et al., 1999).", "The species is slow growing (Kutt, 1992), with a maximum size being attained by 10 to 12 years (Kutt, 1993b). It has been postulated that individuals could live up to 20 years (Banks et al., 1999)." (O'Shea 2005), 10-20 years (Murphy et al. 2019)
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 116mm4.5 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 87.6mm3.5 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 36mm1.5 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 36mm1.5 in
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 0.48g0.02 oz
- Body mass · greatestcomputeddisputed
- 6.19g0.22 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasureddisputed
- 9.71g0.34 oz
Shai Meiri, unpublished
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Mixed
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Fossorial, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Grassland, Savanna
- Biome
- Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests
- Active season · months of the year
- 6–7months
- Region
- Australo-Pacific
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 30–340m
- Range size
- 205,411km²
insects and fruit (Henkel 2010), arthropods (Robertson and Coventry 2019; O'Shea 2005, does not mention plants in her lengthy discussion)
Active foraging / mixed (O'Shea 2005)
(e.g., O'Shea 2005, Thompson 2006)/mostly active by day (Swan et al. 2017), predominantly diurnal (Robertson and Coventry 2019)
Terrestrial, sometimes climbs (Greer 1989)/"secretive" (Swan et al. 2017)/semi fossorial (O'Shea 2005, Thompson 2006)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 2eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–2eggs
- Mean clutch
- 2eggs
- Clutches a year
- 1per year
- First breeds at
- 24–48months
2 (Bauer, pers. comm., 25.10.2011, O'Shea 2005, Thompson 2006), 1-2 (Brown 2012, Murphy et al. 2019), 2 (Robertson and Coventry 2019)
(Bauer, pers. comm., 25.10.2011, O'Shea 2005, Thompson 2006), 1-2 (Brown 2012, Murphy et al. 2019), 2 (Robertson and Coventry 2019)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Gekkota
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Fischer
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1882
- Type locality
- Australia
Keeping one
Many-lined Delma is assessed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List. Species at risk in the wild are often covered by CITES and by national law, which decide what may be bought, sold, moved across a border or kept at all — and captive-bred and wild-caught animals are usually treated differently. Check the rules where you are before acquiring one. Nothing below is a judgement about keeping this species; it is what a published welfare standard says about space, and what the animal itself was measured doing.
18.5 in × 18.5 in × 11.5 in(46 × 46 × 29 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better. Substrate at least 2.25 in (6 cm) deep.
The standard sizes ground-dwelling species at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times snout-vent length.
Burrows, so substrate deep enough to dig in matters as much as floor area.
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 (116 mm), at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
In a laboratory thermal gradient this species settled at 79–85 °F (26–29.3 °C).
Preferred body temperature, recorded in a laboratory gradient where the animal could choose freely. A measurement of the animal, not a setting for a thermostat.
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 6 g, the heaviest recorded for Many-lined Delma — 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 female · snout to vent
- — 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 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
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
Others in Pygopodidae
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). Delma impar. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/delma-impar
@misc{delma_impar_2026,
title = {Delma impar},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/delma-impar}
}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.