Reptilia · Squamata
Sceloporus olivaceusSmith, 1934
Texas Spiny Lizard
Photograph by GayleIsTired, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A tree-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating lizard from the Nearctic region, reaching 124 mm snout to vent.
Reptilia › Squamata › Phrynosomatidae › Sceloporus
- Grows to
- 124mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 3.8years
Longer than 90% 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
46 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
- Longest recorded life
- 3.8years
- Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradientmeasured
- 32.7°C
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 33.75°C93 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 31–36.5°C88–98 °F
Pianka and Parker 1975
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 124mm5 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 93.3mm3.75 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 90.9mm3.5 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 25mm1 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 24.4mm1 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 56.12g2 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 0.6g0.02 oz
max 124 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
- Mixed
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Arboreal
- Habitat
- Forest, Shrubland
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Active season · months of the year
- 7.5–8months
- Region
- Nearctic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Lowest it lives · above sea level
- 200m
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1200m
- Range size
- 646,824km²
- Density
- 30.9–63per hectare
- Home range · largest recorded
- 683.9m2
insects and small lizards (Smith 1946, Lemos-Espinal and Dixon 2013), 10.4% ants (Bergmann et al. 2009, see also Lemos-Espinal and Smith 2007), arthropods and occasionally small lizards (Heimes 2022)
Sit and Wait (e.g., Jones and Lovich 2009, Lemos-Espinal and Dixon 2013) / active foraging (Dutton et al. 1975)
e.g., Lemos-Espinal and Dixon 2013, Hibbitts and Hibbitts 2015, Olberding et al. 2016, Heimes 2022
sea level to 1200 (Heimes 2022)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 17.9eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 6–34eggs
- Mean clutch
- 9.8–24.5eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 2.5per year
- Clutches a year
- 1–4per year
- First breeds at
- 10–12months
18 (Charnov et al. 2007), means 11.3-24.5 depending on age (Lee 1975), 8-30, mean 14.3 (e.g., Jimenez-Arcos et al. 2017), varues with age: max 34 ("one-year olds average 11.3 eggs per clutch, twoyear olds average 18.4 eggs per clutch, and females three plus years of age average 24.5 eggs per clutch (blair, op. cit.)." Mallery 2017), 11-34 (Heimes 2022) , Dominguez-Guerrero et al. 2022 (mean 18.1), Cruz-Elizalde et al. 2022b (9.8 ± 1.4 range 6.0–16.0, n = 6)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Pleurodonta
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Smith
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1934
- Type locality
- USA
Keeping one
19.5 in × 12 in × 19.5 in(50 × 31 × 50 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 5 in (124 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 91 °F (32.7 °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.
7kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 56 g, the heaviest recorded for Texas Spiny 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 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 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 olivaceus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/sceloporus-olivaceus
@misc{sceloporus_olivaceus_2026,
title = {Sceloporus olivaceus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/sceloporus-olivaceus}
}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.