Reptilia · Squamata
Gymnophthalmus speciosusHallowell, 1861
Golden Tegulet
Photograph by Brian Gratwicke, CC BY, via Wikimedia Commons
A day-active, meat-eating lizard from the Neotropic region, reaching 48 mm snout to vent.
Also called Golden Spectacled Tegu.
Reptilia › Squamata › Gymnophthalmidae › Gymnophthalmus
- Grows to
- 48mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives
- Fossorial, terrestrial
Longer than only 20% of all species in Gymnophthalmidae 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 28 to 121 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
37 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
- 2013
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 48mm2 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 40.8mm1.5 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 41.7mm1.75 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 17.5mm0.7 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 17.5mm0.7 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 2.36g0.08 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 1.2g0.04 oz
Shai Meiri, unpublished
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
- Fossorial, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Active season · months of the year
- 12months
- Region
- Neotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1320m
- Range size
- 1,096,496km²
Arthropods (e.g., McCranie 2018)
e.g., Mesquita et al. 2016
e.g., McCranie and Gutsche 2016, McCranie 2018
Terrestrial and Leaf Litter (e.g., Bars-Closel et al. 2018, McCranie 2018)/ Terrestrial and fossorial (Rand and Myers 1990, Mccranie et al. 2005, McCranie and Gutsche 2016) / fossorial (Dunham et al. 1988, Mesquita et al. 2016)
265-306 (Meza-Joya and Ramos-Pallares 2015), 0-1320 (McCranie 2018), 100-300 (Senaris and Rojas-Runjaic 2020)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 1.92eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–4eggs
- Mean clutch
- 1.83–2eggs
- Clutches a year
- 1–3per year
- First breeds at
- 7months
means 1.83-2 (Mesquita et al. 2016), 1-4 (McCranie 2018)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Laterata
- Subspecies
- Gymnophthalmus speciosus speciosus (HALLOWELL 1861) Gymnophthalmus speciosus birdi STUART 1939 Gymnophthalmus speciosus sumichrasti (COPE 1875)
- Described by
- Hallowell
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1861
- Type locality
- Nicaragua
Keeping one
7.5 in × 7.5 in × 4.75 in(19 × 19 × 12 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better. Substrate at least 0.9 in (2 cm) deep.
The standard sizes ground-dwelling species at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times snout-vent length.
Burrows, so substrate deep enough to dig in matters as much as floor area.
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 2 in (48 mm), at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
No preferred body temperature has been recorded for Golden Tegulet. 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.
0kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 2 g, the heaviest recorded for Golden Tegulet — 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 at hatching
- — Longest recorded life
- — 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
- — 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
- — Population trend
- — Red List criteria
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
Others in Gymnophthalmidae
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). Gymnophthalmus speciosus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/gymnophthalmus-speciosus
@misc{gymnophthalmus_speciosus_2026,
title = {Gymnophthalmus speciosus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/gymnophthalmus-speciosus}
}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.