Reptilia · Squamata
Oplurus cyclurusMerrem, 1820
Merrem's Madagascar Swift
Photograph placed in the public domain, CC0, via iNaturalist
A tree-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating lizard from the Madagascan region, reaching 160 mm snout to vent.
Reptilia › Squamata › Opluridae › Oplurus
- Grows to
- 160mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 9.3years
What is known
37 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
- 2011
- Population trend
- Decreasing
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 9.3years
- Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradientmeasured
- 39.8°C
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 39.8°C
Carey and Judge 2000, De Magalhaes & Costa 2009, Slavens and Slavens 1999
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 160mm6.25 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 92mm3.5 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 92mm3.5 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 40mm1.5 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 40mm1.5 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 175.9g6.2 oz
- Body mass · a typical adult
- 45.4g1.6 oz
max 160 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
AnAge rates this record "acceptable"
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Sit and wait
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Arboreal
- Habitat
- Forest, Shrubland
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Region
- Madagascan
- Mainland or island
- Found only on islands
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 500m
- Range size
- 230,747km²
insects in captivity (Muchlinski et al. 1995)
Sit and Wait
e.g., Theisinger and Ratianarivo 2015, Mori et al. 2014
almost exclusively Arboreal but also Saxicolous and Terrestrial (Henkel and Schmidt 2000), arboreal (Theisinger and Ratianarivo 2015, Mori et al. 2014)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 4eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 4eggs
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Pleurodonta
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Merrem
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1820
- Type locality
- Madagascar
Keeping one
2 ft 1 in × 15.5 in × 2 ft 1 in(64 × 40 × 64 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better.
The standard sizes climbing species at 4 × 2.5 × 4 times snout-vent length.
Lives in vegetation, so height and climbing structure matter more than floor space.
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 6.25 in (160 mm), at 4 × 2.5 × 4 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
In a laboratory thermal gradient this species settled at 104 °F (39.8 °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
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.
19kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 176 g, the heaviest recorded for Merrem's Madagascar Swift — 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 · adult female, mean
- — Body mass at hatching
- — Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Mean clutch · smallest reported
- — Mean clutch · largest reported
- — Clutches in a year
- — Clutches a year · fewest
- — Clutches a year · most
- — 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
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
Others in Opluridae
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). Oplurus cyclurus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/oplurus-cyclurus
@misc{oplurus_cyclurus_2026,
title = {Oplurus cyclurus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/oplurus-cyclurus}
}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.
- AnAge, Human Ageing Genomic Resources (de Magalhães et al.), used under CC BY 3.0.