Gambelia wislizeniiBaird & Girard, 1852

Longnose Leopard Lizard

Photograph by Dylan Duvergé from Santa Cruz, USA, CC BY, via Wikimedia Commons

A ground-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating lizard from the Nearctic region, reaching 146 mm snout to vent.

Once published as Crotaphytus wislizeni — those names reach this page.

Reptilia › Squamata › Crotaphytidae › Gambelia

Grows to: 146mm; greatest recorded
Eats: Carnivorous
Active: Diurnal
Lives up to: 9.8years

What is known

45 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: 2007
Population trend: Stable

The animal itself

Limbs: Four legs
Venomous: No
Fangs: None
Longest recorded life: 9.8years
Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradientmeasured: 35.4–36.8°C96–98 °F
Body temperature when active · measured in the wild: 38.3°C101 °F
Body temp in the wild · mean, when active: 37.3–39.3°C99–103 °F

Size

Length snout to vent · greatest recorded: 146mm5.75 in
Length snout to vent · adult female mean: 110.5mm4.25 in
Largest female · snout to vent: 110.5mm4.25 in
Hatchling length · snout to vent: 44mm1.75 in
Largest juvenile · snout to vent: 44mm1.75 in
Body mass · greatestcomputed: 120.7g4.3 oz
Body mass at hatchingmeasured: 2.55g0.09 oz

How it lives

Diet: Carnivorous
How it hunts: Sit and wait
Active: Diurnal
Where it lives: Terrestrial
Habitat: Desert, Shrubland
Biome: Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
Active season · months of the year: 3.5–7months
Region: Nearctic
Mainland or island: Mainland
Highest it lives · above sea level: 2100m
Range size: 1,387,973km²
Density: 0.1–3per hectare
Home range · largest recorded: 23,500m2

Breeding

Reproduction: Oviparous
Average clutch: 5.14eggs
Eggs or young per clutch: 1–14eggs
Mean clutch: 2.67–7.6eggs
Clutches in a year: 1.25per year
Clutches a year: 0.5–2per year
First breeds at: 9–24months

Naming and history

Suborder: Sauria
Infraorder: Pleurodonta
Subspecies: No
Described by: Baird & Girard
Moved to another genus · since it was first described: Yes
Described in: 1852
Type locality: USA

Keeping one

23 in × 23 in × 14.5 in(58 × 58 × 37 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 5.75 in (146 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 96–98 °F (35.4–36.8 °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.

14kJ per day

Worked out for an animal of 121 g, the heaviest recorded for Longnose Leopard 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 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
— Sex decided by
— Red List criteria
— Active in
— Lowest it lives · above sea level

Others in Crotaphytidae

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). Gambelia wislizenii. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/gambelia-wislizenii

@misc{gambelia_wislizenii_2026,
  title  = {Gambelia wislizenii},
  author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/gambelia-wislizenii}
}

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.