Reptilia · Squamata
Furcifer lateralisGray, 1831
Jewel Chameleon
Photograph by Bernard DUPONT from FRANCE, CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons
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A day-active, omnivorous chameleon from the Madagascan region, reaching 139 mm snout to vent.
Also called Carpet Chameleon.
Once published as Chamaeleo lateralis — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Chamaeleonidae › Furcifer
- Grows to
- 139mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Omnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 3years
Longer than 83% of all chameleons 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 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
39 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
- 2014
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 3years
Necas 1999: 1 in the wild, up to 3 in captivity, Rogner 1997: 2-3; LeBerre 2009: 2, Glaw and Vences 2007: 2-3 in captivity, survive one in the wild
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 139mm5.5 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 95.5mm3.75 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 69.5mm2.75 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 28.5mm1 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 28.5mm1 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 50.77g1.8 oz
max 139 mm SVL (Feldman et al. 2016)
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
- Omnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Arboreal, saxicolous, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Grassland, Savanna
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Active season · months of the year
- 12months
- Region
- Madagascan
- Mainland or island
- Found only on islands
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 2000m
- Range size
- 467,156km²
- Density
- 5.1–27.3per hectare
diet includes some plant material (Necas 1999)
e.g., Ramanamanjato 2007, Belluardo et al. 2022
Arboreal and Terrestrial and Saxicolous / arboreal (Ramanamanjato 2007, Belluardo et al. 2022)
900-1560 (Belluardo et al. 2022)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Sex decided by
- Temperature
- Average clutch
- 13.5eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 4–23eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 4per year
- Clutches a year
- 1–6per year
- First breeds at
- 2–6months
4-23 (Blanc 1970); 12-16 (LeBerre 2009)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Acrodontia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Gray
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1831
- Type locality
- Madagascar
Keeping one
22 in × 22 in × 22 in(56 × 56 × 56 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better.
The standard sizes ground species at 4 × 4 × 2.5 and climbing species at 4 × 2.5 × 4 times snout-vent length.
Recorded both on the ground and climbing, so this is the larger of the two rules in every dimension.
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 5.5 in (139 mm), at 4 × 4 × 4 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
No preferred body temperature has been recorded for Jewel 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.
6kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 51 g, the heaviest recorded for Jewel 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 · a typical adult
- — Body mass · adult female, mean
- — 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
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Mean clutch · smallest reported
- — Mean clutch · largest reported
- — 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
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
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 lateralis. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/furcifer-lateralis
@misc{furcifer_lateralis_2026,
title = {Furcifer lateralis},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/furcifer-lateralis}
}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.