Reptilia · Squamata
Gallotia stehliniSchenkel, 1901
Gran Canaria Giant Lizard
Photograph by Juan Emilio from Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, España, CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons
A ground-dwelling, day-active, plant-eating lizard from the Afrotropic region, reaching 370 mm snout to vent.
Once published as Lacerta stehlini — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Lacertidae › Gallotia
- Grows to
- 370mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Herbivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 13years
Longer than 99% 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
43 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
- 2008
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 13years
- Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradientmeasured
- 30–33.6°C86–92 °F
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 33.6°C92 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 33.5–33.7°C92–93 °F
Castanet 1994: 12; Jesus 2012: 13, Molina-Borja and Rodriguez-Dominguez 2004: 145 months, Hallmann & Griebeler 2015: 13 months
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 370mm14.5 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 178.4mm7 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 185.9mm7.25 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 43.5mm1.75 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 43.5mm1.75 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 1085.8g2.4 lb
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 2.12g0.07 oz
max 370 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
- Herbivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Rocky, Shrubland
- Biome
- Mediterranean
- Region
- Afrotropic
- Mainland or island
- Found only on islands
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1950m
- Range size
- 1538km²
- Density
- 51–51.5per hectare
Herbivorous / Omnivorous (Salvador 2007, who says it eat mostly plants, and reports that the frequency of plants in the diet increases with age or size, and that it eats flowers, fruits, leaves and stems of plants, insects and small vertebrates. It has tendency to the cannibalism), a mouse (Mamin and Le Bail 2021), 94.1-98.7% plant matter by dry weight (Lopez‐Darias et al. 2015),
but nocturnal and crepuscular activity was also observed, Salvador 2007
max 1950 (Hallmann & Griebeler 2015)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Sex decided by
- Genes, ZW/ZZ
- Average clutch
- 10.05eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 4–16eggs
- Mean clutch
- 9.8–10.3eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 1per year
- Clutches a year
- 1–2per year
- First breeds at
- 35–48months
4-16 (Maso and Pijoan 2011), 10.33 (Hallmann & Griebeler 2015)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Laterata
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Schenkel
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1901
- Type locality
- Spain (Canary Islands)
Keeping one
4 ft 10 in × 4 ft 10 in × 3 ft(148 × 148 × 93 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 14.5 in (370 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 86–92 °F (30–33.6 °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
Prey size does not apply. A herbivore's diet is judged on fibre, on the ratio of calcium to phosphorus, and on avoiding plants high in oxalates.
The animal does not take prey items. This is established practice, not a measurement.
98kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 1,086 g, the heaviest recorded for Gran Canaria Giant 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
- — 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
- — Colour on the back
- — Pattern on the back
- — Pupil
- — Red List criteria
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
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). Gallotia stehlini. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/gallotia-stehlini
@misc{gallotia_stehlini_2026,
title = {Gallotia stehlini},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/gallotia-stehlini}
}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.