Lialis burtonisGray, 1834

Burton's Snake-lizard

Photograph by dhfischer, CC BY, via iNaturalist

A ground-dwelling, active by day or night, meat-eating lizard from the Australo-Pacific region, reaching 315 mm snout to vent.

Also called Burton's Legless Lizard.

Reptilia › Squamata › Pygopodidae › Lialis

Grows to: 315mm; greatest recorded
Eats: Carnivorous
Active: Cathemeral
Lives up to: 30years

Body length across Pygopodidae

Longer than 98% of all species in Pygopodidae anyone has measured.

98% of 47 species are smaller2% larger

64.5 mmthe whole family, smallest to largest315 mm

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 64.5 to 315 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

43 sourced facts, each taken from a named scientific dataset. How to read these.

Cited from a dataset unless a row is marked otherwise.

Two of these figures disagree

Body mass (adult female, mean) is given as 863, and Body mass (greatest) as 24.3 — but an average female cannot outweigh the heaviest animal recorded. They come from different sources and both are shown exactly as those sources give them.

Standing in the world

Still living: Extant
Conservation status: Least Concern
Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked: 2014
Population trend: Stable

The animal itself

Limbs: None
Venomous: No
Fangs: None
Longest recorded life: 30years
Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradientmeasured: 35.1°C
Body temperature when active · measured in the wild: 29°C84 °F
Body temp in the wild · mean, when active: 29°C

Size

Length snout to vent · greatest recorded: 315mm12.5 in
Length snout to vent · adult female mean: 203.8mm8 in
Largest female · snout to vent: 199.3mm7.75 in
Hatchling length · snout to vent: 70.5mm2.75 in
Largest juvenile · snout to vent: 70.5mm2.75 in
Body mass at hatchingmeasured: 1.6g0.06 oz
Body mass · greatestcomputeddisputed: 24.33g0.86 oz
Body mass · adult female, meanmeasureddisputed: 863g1.9 lb

How it lives

Diet: Carnivorous
How it hunts: Mixed
Active: Cathemeral
Where it lives: Terrestrial
Habitat: Desert, Forest, Grassland, Savanna, Shrubland
Biome: Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
Region: Australo-Pacific
Mainland or island: Mainland
Highest it lives · above sea level: 1000m
Range size: 7,207,155km²
Density: 25.5per hectare

Breeding

Reproduction: Oviparous
Sex decided by: Genes, XX/XY
Average clutch: 1.85eggs
Eggs or young per clutch: 1–2eggs
Mean clutch: 1.7–2eggs
Clutches a year: 1–2per year

Naming and history

Suborder: Sauria
Infraorder: Gekkota
Subspecies: No
Described by: Gray
Moved to another genus · since it was first described: No
Described in: 1834
Type locality: Australia

Keeping one

4 ft 2 in × 4 ft 2 in × 2 ft 7 in(126 × 126 × 79 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 12.5 in (315 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 95 °F (35.1 °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.

3kJ per day

Worked out for an animal of 24 g, the heaviest recorded for Burton's Snake-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
— Eats arthropods
— Eats vertebrates
— Eats plant matter
— 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
— Red List criteria
— Active season · shortest recorded
— Active season · longest recorded
— Home range · largest recorded
— Active in
— Lowest it lives · above sea level

Others in Pygopodidae

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). Lialis burtonis. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/lialis-burtonis

@misc{lialis_burtonis_2026,
  title  = {Lialis burtonis},
  author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/lialis-burtonis}
}

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.
Moura, M. R. et al. TetrapodTraits: a database of 33,281 tetrapod species. Used under CC BY 4.0. Observed values only; this encyclopedia does not publish its imputed predictions.