Reptilia · Squamata
Laemanctus serratusCope, 1864
Serrated Casquehead Iguana
Photograph by Sebastián de Jesús Herrera Buenfil, CC BY, via iNaturalist
An active by day or night, meat-eating lizard from the Neotropic region, reaching 190 mm snout to vent.
Reptilia › Squamata › Corytophanidae › Laemanctus
- Grows to
- 190mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Lives up to
- 5.2years
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
- 2012
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 5.2years
Slavens and Slavens 1999
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 190mm7.5 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 40mm1.5 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 43.5mm1.75 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 227.5g8 oz
max 190 mm (e.g., Heimes 2022)
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Sit and wait
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Where it lives
- Arboreal, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Region
- Neotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1600m
- Range size
- 208,775km²
invertebrates and small vertebrates (e.g., Dixon and Lemos-Espinal 2010, Lemos-Espinal and Dixon 2013, Ramirez-Bautista et al. 2014, McCranie 2018), arthropods anoles and frogs (Calderon 2002), insects, frogs, snails and lizards (Heimes 2022)
e.g., Heimes 2022
Diurnal/mostly diurnal but also reported being active at night (Calderon 2002), cathemeral (Rodda 2020)
Arboreal and Terrestrial / arboreal (Heimes 2022)
0-1600 (Ramirez-Bautista et al. 2014, see also Heimes 2022)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 7eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 3–11eggs
- Clutches a year
- 1–3per year
- First breeds at
- 24months
3-7 (Lemos-Espinal and Dixon 2013, Calderon 2002, Ramirez-Bautista et al. 2014, McCranie 2018, Heimes 2022), 5-9 (Hribal and Holanova 2004), 3-5 (Suarez-Varon et al. 2019)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Pleurodonta
- Subspecies
- Laemanctus serratus alticoronatus COPE 1866 Laemanctus serratus serratus COPE 1864
- Described by
- Cope
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1864
- Type locality
- Mexico
Keeping one
2 ft 6 in × 2 ft 6 in × 2 ft 6 in(76 × 76 × 76 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 7.5 in (190 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 Serrated Casquehead Iguana. 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.
24kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 228 g, the heaviest recorded for Serrated Casquehead Iguana — 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 female mean
- — 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 female · snout to vent
- — 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 · 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
- — Mean clutch · smallest reported
- — Mean clutch · largest reported
- — 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
- — 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 Corytophanidae
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). Laemanctus serratus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/laemanctus-serratus
@misc{laemanctus_serratus_2026,
title = {Laemanctus serratus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/laemanctus-serratus}
}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.