Reptilia · Squamata
Dopasia gracilisGray, 1845
Asian Glass Lizard
Photograph by Rohit, CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons
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A ground-dwelling, active by day or night, meat-eating lizard from the Oriental region, reaching 350 mm snout to vent.
Also called Burmese Glass Lizard, Indian glass snake.
Once published as Ophisaurus gracilis — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Anguidae › Dopasia
- Grows to
- 350mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Lives
- Terrestrial
Longer than 97% of all species in Anguidae 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 72 to 610 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
33 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
- 2019
- Population trend
- Decreasing
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 350mm14 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 143mm5.75 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 44mm1.75 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 44mm1.75 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 136g4.8 oz
max 350 mm SVL (Feldman et al. 2016)
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Active season · months of the year
- 6months
- Region
- Oriental
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 500–2500m
- Range size
- 1,725,355km²
Invertebrates/ earthworms (only! Kastle et al. 2013), insects, mollusks and earthworms (IUCN Bangladesh 2015), arthropods (Das and Das 2017)
Nocturnal (e.g., Ahmed et al. 2009; basks in cool mornings after rain, Cox et al. 1998), Nocturnal "and possibly diurnal" IUCN Bangladesh 2015) / Diurnal (Das 2010, implied by Hill 2005, Das and Das 2017, Jenssen and Sy 2022) / basking in the sun (Lalremsanga et al. 2010, Chan-ard et al. 2015)
e.g., Das and Das 2017, Jenssen and Sy 2022
1650-5500 (Kastle et al. 2013 - I assume 5500 is a typo), 900-2500 (Schleich and Katle 2002), 900-2400 (Das and Das 2017), 900-2438 (Pradhan and Yonle 2020)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 5eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–7eggs
- Clutches a year
- 1per year
3-5 (Ahmed 2009), 4-6 (Kastle et al. 2013, IUCN Bangladesh 2015), 4-7 (Das and Das 2017), "brooding an egg" (Pradhan and Yonle 2020, say it is unusual; may have been in the middle of laying?)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Anguimoprha
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Gray
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1845
- Type locality
- India
Keeping one
4 ft 7 in × 4 ft 7 in × 2 ft 10 in(140 × 140 × 88 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.
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 14 in (350 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 Asian Glass 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.
15kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 136 g, the heaviest recorded for Asian Glass 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 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 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 it hunts
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Mean clutch · smallest reported
- — Mean clutch · largest reported
- — 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
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
Others in Anguidae
- Anzuetoi Arboreal Alligator Lizard
- Argueta Arboreal Alligator Lizard
- Baja California Legless Lizard
- Bakersfield Legless Lizard
- Banded Arboreal Alligator Lizard
- Bogert's Arboreal Alligator Lizard
- Brilliant Arboreal Alligator Lizard
- Buettikofer's Glass Lizard
- California Legless Lizard
- Campbell's Alligator Lizard
- Cedros Island Alligator Lizard
- Central Peninsular Alligator Lizard
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). Dopasia gracilis. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/dopasia-gracilis
@misc{dopasia_gracilis_2026,
title = {Dopasia gracilis},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/dopasia-gracilis}
}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.