Reptilia · Squamata
Lepidophyma sylvaticumTaylor, 1939
Madrean Tropical Night Lizard
Photograph by Adriana García Ramírez, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A day-active lizard from the Neotropic region, reaching 113 mm snout to vent.
Reptilia › Squamata › Xantusiidae › Lepidophyma
- Grows to
- 113mm
- greatest recorded
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives
- Arboreal, saxicolous
- Weighs up to
- 28.96g
- greatest
Longer than 81% of all species in Xantusiidae 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 36 to 153 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
35 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
- 2007
- Population trend
- Decreasing
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradientmeasured
- 24.8°C
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 25.5°C
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 113mm4.5 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 76mm3 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 76mm3 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 27.55mm1 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 27.6mm1 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 28.96g1 oz
max 113 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
How it lives
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Arboreal, saxicolous
- Habitat
- Forest
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Region
- Neotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 300–1800m
- Range size
- 58,146km²
"observed during daytime and part of twilight (...10:15–17:54 h" (Arenas-Moreno et al. 2018)
leaf litter (inferred from Noonan et al. 2013)/arboreal (inferred from Lemos-Espinal and Dixon 2013)/ "typically found under bark, logs, and in rock crevices" (Arenas-Moreno et al. 2018)
386-1800 (Ramirez-Bautista et al. 2014), 300-1800 (Teran-Juarez et al. 2017), 500-1800 (Arenas-Moreno et al. 2018)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Average clutch
- 5.6eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–11eggs
- Mean clutch
- 4.7–6.5eggs
- Clutches a year
- 1per year
see Dixon and Lemos-Espinal 2010, 5-8 (Lemos-Espinal and Dixon 2013), Ramirez-Bautista et al. 2014 (1-11, mean 5.8), 1-7, mean 4.7 (Teran-Juarez et al. 2017)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Scincoidea
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Taylor
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1939
- Type locality
- Mexico
Keeping one
18 in × 18 in × 18 in(45 × 45 × 45 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.
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 (113 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 77 °F (24.8 °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
4kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 29 g, the heaviest recorded for Madrean Tropical Night 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
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — Body mass · adult female, mean
- — Body mass at hatching
- — Longest recorded life
- — Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- — Diet
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How it hunts
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Clutches in a year
- — 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
Others in Xantusiidae
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). Lepidophyma sylvaticum. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/lepidophyma-sylvaticum
@misc{lepidophyma_sylvaticum_2026,
title = {Lepidophyma sylvaticum},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/lepidophyma-sylvaticum}
}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.