Reptilia · Squamata
Sceloporus minorCope, 1885
Minor Lizard
Photograph by José Belem Hernández Díaz, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A rock-dwelling, day-active, omnivorous lizard from the Neotropic region, reaching 87 mm snout to vent.
Also called Northern Blue Mountain Lizard, Red Minor Lizard, Red-spotted Minor Lizard.
Reptilia › Squamata › Phrynosomatidae › Sceloporus
- Grows to
- 87mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Omnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives
- Saxicolous
Longer than 52% of all species in Phrynosomatidae 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 47 to 175 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
38 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
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradientmeasured
- 32.6°C
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 27.7°C
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 87mm3.5 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 71.1mm2.75 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 72mm2.75 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 24.9mm1 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 27.6mm1 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 21.73g0.77 oz
Shai Meiri, unpublished
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
- Sit and wait
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Saxicolous
- Habitat
- Forest, Shrubland
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Region
- Neotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 1700–3000m
- Range size
- 133,512km²
- Home range · largest recorded
- 134.7m2
(Leyte-Manrique et al. 2011)/insects (Lemos-Espinal and Dixon 2013)/arthopods (Ramirez-Bautista et al. 2014), Arthropods and 13.5-14.5% plants (Garcia-Rosales et al. 2019)
Dixon and Lemos-Espinal 2010, Lemos-Espinal and Dixon 2013, Heimes 2022
e.g., Ramirez-Bautista et al. 2014
1700-3000 (Ramirez-Bautista et al. 2014)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 6.58eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 2–13eggs
- Mean clutch
- 5–6.3eggs
- Clutches a year
- 1per year
eggs, Lemos-Espinal and Dixon 2013
7.07 (Myhrvold et al. 2015), mean 6.33 (Zuniga-Vega et al. 2016), 2-13, mean 6.09 (Jimenez-Arcos et al. 2017), 3-13 (Heimes 2022), Dominguez-Guerrero et al. 2022 (mean 5), Cruz-Elizalde et al. 2022b (5.6 ± 0.48 range 4.0–9.0, n = 14)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Pleurodonta
- Subspecies
- Sceloporus minor cyaneus TREVIÑO-SALDAÑA 1988 Sceloporus minor erythrocyaneus MERTENS 1950 Sceloporus minor immucronatus SMITH 1936 Sceloporus minor minor COPE 1885
- Described by
- Cope
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1885
- Type locality
- Mexico
Keeping one
13.5 in × 13.5 in × 8.5 in(35 × 35 × 22 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.
Lives on rock, so stable hard surfaces and basking ledges suit it.
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 3.5 in (87 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 91 °F (32.6 °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.
3kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 22 g, the heaviest recorded for Minor 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
- — Body mass at hatching
- — Longest recorded life
- — 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
- — 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
- — Active in
Others in Phrynosomatidae
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). Sceloporus minor. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/sceloporus-minor
@misc{sceloporus_minor_2026,
title = {Sceloporus minor},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/sceloporus-minor}
}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.