Reptilia · Squamata
Monilesaurus elliotiGünther, 1864
Elliot's Forest Lizard
Photograph by Ashwin Viswanathan, CC BY, via Wikimedia Commons
A day-active, meat-eating lizard from the Oriental region, reaching 76 mm snout to vent.
Once published as Calotes ellioti — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Agamidae › Monilesaurus
- Grows to
- 76.2mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives
- Arboreal, terrestrial
Longer than only 31% of all agamids 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 32 to 418 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
29 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
- 2010
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 76.2mm3 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 68.5mm2.75 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 14.37g0.51 oz
Shai Meiri, unpublished
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Arboreal, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Region
- Oriental
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1800m
- Density
- 9per hectare
Insects (see "Sources (general)")
e.g., Pal et al. 2018, Deepak et al. 2022
Arboreal and Terrestrial / semi arboreal to arboreal (Pal et al. 2018, Deepak et al. 2022)
0-1100 (Srinivasulu et al. 2014), 700-1250 (Deepak et al. 2022)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 4eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 3–5eggs
- Clutches a year
- 1per year
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Acrodontia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Günther
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1864
- Type locality
- India
Keeping one
12 in × 12 in × 12 in(31 × 31 × 31 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 3 in (76.2 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 Elliot's Forest Lizard. 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.
2kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 14 g, the heaviest recorded for Elliot's Forest 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 female · snout to vent
- — Largest male · snout to vent
- — Largest female · shell length
- — Largest male · shell length
- — Hatchling length · snout to vent
- — Hatchling length · nose to tail
- — Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- — 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
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How it hunts
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Mean clutch · smallest reported
- — Mean clutch · largest reported
- — 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
- — 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
- — Population trend
- — Red List criteria
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
- — Range size
Others in Agamidae
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). Monilesaurus ellioti. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/monilesaurus-ellioti
@misc{monilesaurus_ellioti_2026,
title = {Monilesaurus ellioti},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/monilesaurus-ellioti}
}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.