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Squamata · ChamaeleonidaeEntry 8,169 of 21,572
Labord’s chameleon, Furcifer labordi

Reptilia · Squamata

Furcifer labordiGrandidier, 1872

Labord’s chameleon

Photograph by Christopher Raxworthy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

A tree-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating chameleon from the Madagascan region, reaching 147 mm snout to vent.

Reptilia › Squamata › Chamaeleonidae › Furcifer

Grows to
147mm
greatest recorded
Eats
Carnivorous
Active
Diurnal
Lives up to
1.3years
Body length across Chamaeleonidae

Longer than 85% of all chameleons anyone has measured.

85% of 227 species are smaller15% larger
18.2 mmthe whole family, smallest to largest300 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 18.2 to 300 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

42 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
Vulnerable
Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
2009
Population trend
Decreasing
Red List criteria
B1ab(iii)

The animal itself

Limbs
Four legs
Venomous
No
Fangs
None
Longest recorded life
1.3years

Karsten et al. 2008: < 6 months in nature; LeBerre 2009: 2 years for males; 16 months (Eckhardt et al. 2017), Eckhardt et al. 2018: "both sexes disappear synchronously at 4-5 months of age (Karsten et al., 2008), lifespan near the northern distribution range (Kirindy Forest, ca. 60 km northeast of Morondava) is prolonged in both sexes to 6-9 months"

Size

Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
147mm5.75 in

max 147 mm SVL (Feldman et al. 2016)

Length snout to vent · adult female mean
66.3mm2.5 in
Largest female · snout to vent
72.2mm2.75 in

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

Hatchling length · snout to vent
22.8mm0.9 in
Largest juvenile · snout to vent
22.5mm0.9 in
Body mass · greatestcomputed
59.36g2.1 oz

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

Body mass · a typical adult
8.73g0.31 oz

AnAge rates this record "acceptable"

Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
7.6g0.27 oz

How it lives

Diet
Carnivorous

Aaron Bauer, pers. comm. December 2013

Active
Diurnal
Where it lives
Arboreal
Habitat
Shrubland
Biome
Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
Region
Madagascan
Mainland or island
Found only on islands
Elevation · above sea level
20–60m

30-60 (Eckhardt et al. 2018)

Range size
16,998km²
Density
4–30.8per hectare

Breeding

Reproduction
Oviparous
Gestation or incubation
260days
Average clutch
9eggs
Eggs or young per clutch
6–12eggs

8-12 (LeBerre 2009), 6-8 (Eckhardt et al. 2018)

Clutches in a year
1per year
Clutches a year
1per year
First breeds at
2–3.5months
Age at first breeding · female
60days

Naming and history

Suborder
Sauria
Infraorder
Acrodontia
Subspecies
No
Described by
Grandidier
Moved to another genus · since it was first described
Yes
Described in
1872
Type locality
Madagascar

Keeping one

Labord’s chameleon is assessed as Vulnerable 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.

23 in × 14.5 in × 23 in(59 × 37 × 59 cm)

Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better.

The standard sizes climbing species at 4 × 2.5 × 4 times snout-vent length.

Lives in vegetation, so height and climbing structure matter more than floor space.

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 5.75 in (147 mm), at 4 × 2.5 × 4 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.

No preferred body temperature has been recorded for Labord’s chameleon. 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.

7kJ per day

Worked out for an animal of 59 g, the heaviest recorded for Labord’s chameleon — 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 at hatching
  • — 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
  • — Mean clutch · smallest reported
  • — Mean clutch · largest reported
  • — Hatchling length · smallest recorded
  • — Hatchling length · largest recorded
  • — 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
  • — Active season · shortest recorded
  • — Active season · longest recorded
  • — Home range · largest recorded
  • — Active in

Others in Chamaeleonidae

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). Furcifer labordi. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/furcifer-labordi

@misc{furcifer_labordi_2026,
  title  = {Furcifer labordi},
  author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/furcifer-labordi}
}

Sources

  1. Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
  2. AnAge, Human Ageing Genomic Resources (de Magalhães et al.), used under CC BY 3.0.
  3. Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.
  4. Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.