Reptilia · Squamata
Ophisaurus attenuatusBaird, 1880
Slender Glass Lizard
Photograph placed in the public domain, CC0, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating lizard from the Nearctic region, reaching 359 mm snout to vent.
Reptilia › Squamata › Anguidae › Ophisaurus
- Grows to
- 359mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 9years
Longer than 98% of all species in Anguidae 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 72 to 610 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
44 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
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 9years
- Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradientmeasured
- 31.2°C
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 31.3°C88 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 28–32°C82–90 °F
4 (Slavens and Slavens 1999), Fitch 1989 caught one individual of 2116 after 9 years
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 359mm14 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 234.9mm9.25 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 234.9mm9.25 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 57mm2.25 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 58mm2.25 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 146.3g5.2 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 1.12g0.04 oz
max 359 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
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest, Grassland, Savanna
- Biome
- Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests
- Active season · months of the year
- 6months
- Region
- Nearctic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 292–1383m
- Range size
- 1,936,720km²
- Density
- 65–101.7per hectare
- Home range · largest recorded
- 4000m2
Arthropods, also small lizards, snakes and bird eggs (Beane et al. 2010), arthropods, also lizards, mammals and snakes (Hibbitts and Hibbitts 2015), invertebrates (LeClere 2013), mostly arthropods, few snails, frogs, snakes and young mammals (Fitch 1989, see also Krysko et al. 2019), invertebrates, eggs and small vertebrates (Sheldon 2022)
(primarily, but sometimes active after dusk, (Hibbitts and Hibbitts 2015)/cerpuscular-diurnal (Minton 2004, Krysko et al. 2019), Dirunal (LeClere 2013), "Diurnal, crepuscular, or nocturnal, depending on weather conditions. In cool weather of spring and fall, the lizards were most active at midday in full sunshine. In hot weather of midsummer, their activity was concentrated around dusk" - and 2 specimens were observed on a road after dark (Fitch 1989),
(e.g., Fitch 1989), terrestrial and fossorial (Phillips et al. 2022)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 9.74eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 4–20eggs
- Mean clutch
- 8.7–10.8eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 1per year
- Clutches a year
- 1per year
- First breeds at
- 20months
e..g, Krysko et al. 2019
4-19 (Beane et al. 2010), 5-20 (Hibbitts and Hibbitts 2015), 4 (n=1, Minton 2004), 5-17 (LeClere 2013, Sheldon 2022), 5-16, mean 10.2 (Fitch 1989), 5-17 (Phillips et al. 2022), 5-19 (Krysko et al. 2019)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Anguimoprha
- Subspecies
- Ophisaurus attenuatus attenuatus COPE 1880 Ophisaurus attenuatus longicaudus MCCONKEY 1952
- Described by
- Baird
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1880
- Type locality
- USA
Keeping one
4 ft 9 in × 4 ft 9 in × 2 ft 11 in(144 × 144 × 90 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 14 in (359 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 88 °F (31.2 °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.
16kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 146 g, the heaviest recorded for Slender Glass 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
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How it hunts
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — 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 in
Others in Anguidae
- Anzuetoi Arboreal Alligator Lizard
- Argueta Arboreal Alligator Lizard
- Asian Glass Lizard
- Baja California Legless Lizard
- Bakersfield Legless Lizard
- Banded Arboreal Alligator Lizard
- Bogert's Arboreal Alligator Lizard
- Brilliant Arboreal Alligator Lizard
- Buettikofer's Glass Lizard
- California Legless Lizard
- Campbell's Alligator Lizard
- Cedros Island Alligator Lizard
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). Ophisaurus attenuatus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/ophisaurus-attenuatus
@misc{ophisaurus_attenuatus_2026,
title = {Ophisaurus attenuatus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/ophisaurus-attenuatus}
}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.