Reptilia · Squamata
Lacerta viridisLaurenti, 1768
Eastern Green Lizard
Photograph by Philipp Pavelka, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A day-active, omnivorous lizard from the Palearctic region, reaching 160 mm snout to vent.
Also called European Green Lizard.
Reptilia › Squamata › Lacertidae › Lacerta
- Grows to
- 160mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Omnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 10years
Longer than 96% 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
48 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
- 2008
- Population trend
- Decreasing
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 10years
- Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradientmeasured
- 32.4°C
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 33.9°C93 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 33.9°C
Carey and Judge 2000, De Magalhaes & Costa 2009: 10, Castanet 1994: 10; Slavens and Slavens 1999: 3 and 11 months, Jesus 2012: 8, Bauwens and Diaz-Uriarte 1997: 38 months, Foufopoulos and Ives 1999 (5 years in the field), Bulbul et al. 2023 (10 in nature)
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 160mm6.25 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 98.8mm4 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 102.4mm4 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 32.5mm1.25 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 32.5mm1.25 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 91.49g3.2 oz
- Body mass · a typical adult
- 21.5g0.76 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 26.4g0.93 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 0.9g0.03 oz
max 160 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
AnAge rates this record "acceptable"
How it lives
- Diet
- Omnivorous
- How it hunts
- Active foraging
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Arboreal, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest, Grassland, Shrubland
- Biome
- Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests
- Active season · months of the year
- 5–7months
- Region
- Palearctic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 2200m
- Range size
- 1,369,544km²
- Density
- 9.4–2000per hectare
- Home range · largest recorded
- 1200m2
invertebrates and small lizards ("The preferred food consists of beetles, orthopterans, caterpillars, and other insects, spiders, worms, molluscs, and small lizards.", Szczerbak 2003)/ hutchlings feed on insects, adults are large enough to prey on smaller lizards and their eggs, young birds and also eat fruit (Valakos et al. 2008), invertebrates, occasionally small lizards, birds and rodents / insects (Valakos 1986), mostly insects and slugs, also fruit (Stille and Stille 2017), invertebrates and plants (see numerical data in Sagonas et al. 2018; 26% plants)
Sit and Wait / active (Sagonas et al. 2018)
e.g., Pafilis and Maragou 2013
Terrestrial / Arboreal (Vanhooydonck and Van Damme 1999)/mostly terrestrial but climbs well (Necas et al. 1997)
max 2200 (Kwet 2015)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Sex decided by
- Genes, ZW/ZZ
- Average clutch
- 9.01eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 4–24eggs
- Mean clutch
- 5.1–12.9eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 1.5per year
- Clutches a year
- 1–2per year
- First breeds at
- 12–36months
6-8, mean 6.6 (Karmishev and Yarigin 2013), 6-22, mean 8 (Stojanov et al. 2011), 5-12 (Szczerbak 2003), up to 20 (Stille and Stille 2017), 7-24, means 12.25-12.92 (Sagonas et al. 2018), 6-19 (Hraoui-Bloquet 1987)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Laterata
- Subspecies
- Lacerta viridis guentherpetersi RYKENA, NETTMANN & MAYER 2001 Lacerta viridis meridionalis CYRÉN 1933 Lacerta viridis viridis (LAURENTI 1768)
- Described by
- Laurenti
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1768
- Type locality
- Austria
Keeping one
2 ft 1 in × 2 ft 1 in × 2 ft 1 in(64 × 64 × 64 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 6.25 in (160 mm), at 4 × 4 × 4 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
In a laboratory thermal gradient this species settled at 90 °F (32.4 °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.
11kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 91 g, the heaviest recorded for Eastern Green 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
- — 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
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
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 viridis. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/lacerta-viridis
@misc{lacerta_viridis_2026,
title = {Lacerta viridis},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/lacerta-viridis}
}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.
- AnAge, Human Ageing Genomic Resources (de Magalhães et al.), used under CC BY 3.0.