Reptilia · Squamata
Karusasaurus polyzonusSmith, 1838
Karoo Girdled Lizard
Photograph placed in the public domain, CC0, via iNaturalist
A rock-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating lizard from the Afrotropic region, reaching 116 mm snout to vent.
Also called Southern Karusa Lizard.
Once published as Chamaesaura polyzonus, Cordylus polyzonus — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Cordylidae › Karusasaurus
- Grows to
- 116mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 11.1years
Longer than 67% of all species in Cordylidae 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 68 to 220 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
38 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
- 2021
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 11.1years
- Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradientmeasured
- 33.1–34°C92–93 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 33.1°C
Carey and Judge 2000: 9.1; Slavens and Slavens 1999: 11 years, 1 month
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 116mm4.5 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 103.7mm4 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 103.7mm4 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 45.96g1.6 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 22g0.78 oz
van Blerk et al. 2021 (max 166 mm, others wrote the same)
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
- Sit and wait
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Saxicolous
- Habitat
- Savanna, Shrubland
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Region
- Afrotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 120m
- Range size
- 754,299km²
insects and "occasionally small quantities of vegetable matter" (Fitzsimons), insects (Branch 2016), arthropods (Heaton et al. 2018), insects and young conspecifics (van Blerk et al. 2021)
Butler 2005
e.g., Schleicher 2015, Branch 2016, van Blerk et al. 2021
e.g., Branch 2016
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Average clutch
- 2.42eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–4eggs
- Mean clutch
- 2–2.85eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 1per year
- Clutches a year
- 1per year
1-4 (Reissig 2014), means 2.28-2.85 (Mesquita et al. 2016), 1-2 (Schleicher 2015), 2-4 (Branch 2016), 2-3, mean and median 3 (!, Riley et al. 2022: "Litter size was, on average, three individuals (median = 3, SE = 0.14, range = 2–3, n = 11).")
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Scincoidea
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Smith
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1838
- Type locality
- South Africa
Keeping one
18.5 in × 18.5 in × 11.5 in(46 × 46 × 29 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.
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 4.5 in (116 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 92–93 °F (33.1–34 °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.
6kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 46 g, the heaviest recorded for Karoo Girdled 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 at hatching
- — Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — 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
- — 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
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
Others in Cordylidae
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). Karusasaurus polyzonus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/karusasaurus-polyzonus
@misc{karusasaurus_polyzonus_2026,
title = {Karusasaurus polyzonus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/karusasaurus-polyzonus}
}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.