Reptilia · Squamata
Salvator rufescensGünther, 1871
Red Tegu
Photograph by Sebastián Fornés, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, day-active, omnivorous lizard from the Neotropic region, reaching 614 mm snout to vent.
Once published as Tupinambis rufescens — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Teiidae › Salvator
- Grows to
- 614mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Omnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 15years
Longer than 99% of all species in Teiidae 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 52.4 to 614 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
40 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
- 2019
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 15years
Carey and Judge 2000, De Magalhaes & Costa 2009, Slavens and Slavens 1999: 10 and 9 months; Wikipedia and numerous tegu captive care websites list 15-20 years
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 614mm2 ft
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 363.5mm14.5 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 363.5mm14.5 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 82mm3.25 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 82mm3.25 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 8398.5g19 lb
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 841g1.9 lb
max 614 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
- Omnivorous
- How it hunts
- Active foraging
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest, Shrubland
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas & Shrublands
- Active season · months of the year
- 5–7months
- Region
- Neotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 100–1880m
- Range size
- 1,371,502km²
- Home range · largest recorded
- 540,000m2
(eggs, birds, arthropods, small mammals, fruit, Scolaro 2006, see also Colli et al. 1998, Acosta et al. 2020), fruit, seeds, arthropods, molluscs, squamates, bitds and mammals (Juri et al. 2015)
Banfi et al. 2023
e.g., Montano et al. 2013
e.g., Fenker et al. 2020
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 21.4eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 15–35eggs
- Mean clutch
- 21.4eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 1per year
- Clutches a year
- 1per year
- First breeds at
- 24months
20-35 (Montano et al. 2013)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Laterata
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Günther
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1871
- Type locality
- Argentina
Keeping one
8 ft 1 in × 8 ft 1 in × 5 ft(246 × 246 × 154 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 2 ft (614 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 Red Tegu. 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.
604kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 8,399 g, the heaviest recorded for Red Tegu — 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 at hatching
- — 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
- — 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
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Active in
Others in Teiidae
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). Salvator rufescens. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/salvator-rufescens
@misc{salvator_rufescens_2026,
title = {Salvator rufescens},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/salvator-rufescens}
}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.