Reptilia · Squamata
Lacerta agilisLinnaeus, 1758
Sand Lizard
Photograph by Lennart Hudel, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating lizard from the Palearctic region, reaching 123 mm snout to vent.
Reptilia › Squamata › Lacertidae › Lacerta
- Grows to
- 123mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 12years
Longer than 94% 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
47 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
- 2018
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 12years
- Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradientmeasured
- 33.8–34.7°C93–94 °F
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 32.2°C90 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 29.8–34.6°C86–94 °F
Carey and Judge 2000, Castanet 1994, Jesus 2012: 12 (much intraspecific geographic variation), Bauwens and Diaz-Uriarte 1997: 51 months, Olsson and Shine 1996: 12, Hallmann and Griebeler 2015: 11, 6-7 (Dunayev and Orlova 2023)
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 123mm4.75 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 77.6mm3 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 77.6mm3 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 27mm1 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 27mm1 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 42.1g1.5 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 8.28g0.29 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 0.5g0.02 oz
Bohme and Koppetsch 2021 (max 123 mm)
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
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest, Grassland, Shrubland
- Biome
- Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests
- Active season · months of the year
- 5–9months
- Region
- Palearctic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 50–3100m
- Range size
- 11,150,960km²
- Density
- 0.3–1000per hectare
- Home range · largest recorded
- 4057m2
Invertebrates (arthropods, Corti and Cascio 2002, Mollov and Petrova 2013, also gastropods, Bischoff 1984, "butterflies and their caterpillars, orthopterans, sects, spiders, woodlice, and molluscs", Szczerbak 2003), invertebrates (Crovetto and Salvidio 2013), arthropods (Barnagaud et al. 2020), insectivorous (Clement et al. 2022), invertebrates and lizards (Dunayev and Orlova 2023)
Mesquita et al. 2016
e.g., Barnagaud et al. 2020, Escoriza and Amat 2021, Clement et al. 2022
e.g., Mesquita et al. 2016, Barnagaud et al. 2020
max 2400 (Hallmann and Griebeler 2015), 1650 (Crovetto and Salvidio 2013), max 1700 (Buehler et al. 2021), max 3500 (Dunayev and Orlova 2023)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Sex decided by
- Genes, ZW/ZZ
- Average clutch
- 8.4eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–21eggs
- Mean clutch
- 5.3–11.5eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 1per year
- Clutches a year
- 0.5–2per year
- First breeds at
- 12–36months
4-15, mean 9.5, 4-13, mean 8 (Karmishev and Yarigin 2013), 5-11 (Nikolskii 1915), mean 9.5 (e.g., Mesquita et al. 2016), 2-19, means 5.3-9.64 (Roitberg et al. 2015), 4-14 (Szczerbak 2003), 11.5 (Hallmann and Griebeler 2015), 2-16 (Ljungstrom et al. 2016, fig1), 6-13 (Hraoui-Bloquet 1987), mean 9.5 (Barnagaud et al. 2020), 5-12 mean 7.8 (Ljubisavljevic et al. 2022), 4-15 (Dunayev and Orlova 2023),
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Laterata
- Subspecies
- Lacerta agilis agilis LINNAEUS 1758 Lacerta agilis argus (LAURENTI 1768) Lacerta agilis boemica SUCHOW 1929 Lacerta agilis bosnica SCHREIBER 1912 Lacerta agilis brevicaudata PETERS 1958 Lacerta agilis chersonensis ANDRZEJOWSKI 1832 Lacerta agilis exigua EICHWALD 1831 Lacerta agilis grusinica PETERS 1960 Lacerta agilis ioriensis PETERS & MUSKHELISCHWILI 1968 Lacerta agilis mzymtensis TUNIYEV & TUNIYEV 2008 Lacerta agilis tauridica SUCHOW 1926
- Described by
- Linnaeus
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1758
- Type locality
- Sweden
Keeping one
19.5 in × 19.5 in × 12 in(49 × 49 × 31 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 4.75 in (123 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 93–94 °F (33.8–34.7 °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.
5kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 42 g, the heaviest recorded for Sand 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.
Other inherited traits
Inherited characteristics and conditions recorded for this species. These are not morphs — nobody breeds for them.
- Green badge1 reference
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
- — 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
- — Red List criteria
- — Active in
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). Lacerta agilis. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/lacerta-agilis
@misc{lacerta_agilis_2026,
title = {Lacerta agilis},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/lacerta-agilis}
}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.