Reptilia · Squamata
Gerrhonotus liocephalusWiegmann, 1828
Texas Alligator Lizard
Photograph by Michelle W. （鍾偉瑋）, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A day-active, meat-eating lizard from the Neotropic region, reaching 203 mm snout to vent.
Also called Wiegmann's alligator lizard.
Reptilia › Squamata › Anguidae › Gerrhonotus
- Grows to
- 203mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 3.6years
Longer than 81% 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
34 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
- 3.6years
Slavens and Slavens, 1999. Reptiles and Amphibians in Captivity: Breeding - Longevity and Inventory, Slaveware, 400 p.
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 203mm8 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 147mm5.75 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 147mm5.75 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 184.1g6.5 oz
max 203 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
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Active foraging
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Arboreal, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest, Shrubland
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Coniferous Forests
- Region
- Neotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 200–3200m
- Range size
- 365,465km²
Arthropods and small vertebrates/arthropods and mollusks (Ramirez-Bautista et al. 2014)
Active (Hernandez-Salinas et al. 2023)
Terrestrial and Arboreal / "They are arboreal, but can be found active on the ground or camouflaged among the leaf litter" (Davalos-Martinez et al. 2018)
200-2300 (Ramirez-Bautista et al. 2014)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 10.7eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 5–31eggs
- Mean clutch
- 10.7eggs
- Clutches a year
- 1per year
5-31 (Zaldivar Riveron et al. 2002)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Anguimoprha
- Subspecies
- Gerrhonotus liocephalus liocephalus WIEGMANN 1828 Gerrhonotus liocephalus austrinus HARTWEG & TIHEN 1946 Gerrhonotus liocephalus loweryi TIHEN 1948
- Described by
- Wiegmann
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1828
- Type locality
- Mexico
Keeping one
2 ft 8 in × 2 ft 8 in × 2 ft 8 in(81 × 81 × 81 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.
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 8 in (203 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 Texas Alligator 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.
20kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 184 g, the heaviest recorded for Texas Alligator 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 · snout to vent
- — Hatchling length · nose to tail
- — Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- — 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 the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — 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
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
Others in Anguidae
- Anzuetoi Arboreal Alligator Lizard
- Argueta Arboreal Alligator Lizard
- Asian Glass 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
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). Gerrhonotus liocephalus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/gerrhonotus-liocephalus
@misc{gerrhonotus_liocephalus_2026,
title = {Gerrhonotus liocephalus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/gerrhonotus-liocephalus}
}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.
- Moura, M. R. et al. TetrapodTraits: a database of 33,281 tetrapod species. Used under CC BY 4.0. Observed values only; this encyclopedia does not publish its imputed predictions.