Reptilia · Squamata
Ophiodes striatusSpix, 1824
Striped Worm Lizard
Photograph by Carlos Otávio Gussoni, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A day-active, meat-eating lizard from the Neotropic region, reaching 329 mm snout to vent.
Reptilia › Squamata › Diploglossidae › Ophiodes
- Grows to
- 329mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives
- Fossorial, terrestrial
Longer than 96% of all species in Diploglossidae 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 64 to 340 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
- 2014
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Hind legs only
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 329mm13 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 194.4mm7.75 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 181.6mm7.25 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 46mm1.75 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 46mm1.75 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 103g3.6 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 0.55g0.02 oz
max 329 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
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Active foraging
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Fossorial, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest, Grassland
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas & Shrublands
- Region
- Neotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 480–1250m
- Range size
- 978,376km²
arthropods (Carreira et al. 2005, Travassos et al. 2015), arthropods and reptiles (Barros and Teixeira 2007)/ invertebrates and reptiles (Montechiaro et al. 2011), Araneae and Orthoptera (Cacciali and Scott 2015)
Fenker et al. 2020
Diurnal and crespuscular (Carreira et al. 2005), Diurnal (Linares and Eterovick 2013, Fenker et al. 2020, Uchoa et al. 2022)
Terrestrial (e.g., Shine and Wall 2008, Fenker et al. 2020) / fossorial (Colli et al. 2002), leaf litter (Uchoa et al. 2022)
480-782 (Uchoa et al. 2022)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Average clutch
- 7.3eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 2–24eggs
- Mean clutch
- 3.6–13eggs
- Clutches a year
- 1per year
"mean number of eight oviductal embryos, and 11 newborns per litter", range 2-16, Montechiaro et al. 2011, 3-11, mean 6 (Barros and Teixeira 2007), Ortiz et al. 2017 (5-24, mean 10.5), 13 (Fenker et al. 2020), 10 (Oliveira et al. 2020; n=1; report 4-14 from the literature), 3-10 (Uchoa et al. 2022),
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Anguimoprha
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Spix
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1824
- Type locality
- Brazil
Keeping one
4 ft 4 in × 4 ft 4 in × 2 ft 8 in(132 × 132 × 82 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better. Substrate at least 6.5 in (17 cm) deep.
The standard sizes ground-dwelling species at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times snout-vent length.
Burrows, so substrate deep enough to dig in matters as much as floor area.
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 13 in (329 mm), at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
No preferred body temperature has been recorded for Striped Worm 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.
12kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 103 g, the heaviest recorded for Striped Worm 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
- — 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 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
- — 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
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
Others in Diploglossidae
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). Ophiodes striatus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/ophiodes-striatus
@misc{ophiodes_striatus_2026,
title = {Ophiodes striatus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/ophiodes-striatus}
}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.