Reptilia · Squamata
Sceloporus torquatusWiegmann, 1828
Crevice Swift
Photograph by Gerardo Reynoso, CC BY-SA, via iNaturalist
A rock-dwelling, day-active, omnivorous lizard from the Neotropic region, reaching 141 mm snout to vent.
Also called Torquate Lizard, Wiegmann's Torquate Lizard.
Reptilia › Squamata › Phrynosomatidae › Sceloporus
- Grows to
- 141mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Omnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives
- Saxicolous
Longer than 97% 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
41 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
- 33.2°C
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 33°C91 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 33°C
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 141mm5.5 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 91.1mm3.5 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 91.4mm3.5 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 28.5mm1 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 28.2mm1 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 79.15g2.8 oz
max 141 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
- Mixed
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Saxicolous
- Habitat
- Forest, Grassland, Rocky, Shrubland
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Active season · months of the year
- 12months
- Region
- Neotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 1200–3540m
- Range size
- 321,352km²
Arthropods, 3.6% plants, mostly insects, also other invertebrates and plants (Dixon and Lemos-Espinal 2010), insects, other invertebrates, plant material, Sceloporus aeneus (Lemos-Espinal and Dixon 2013), invertebrates (details in Ortiz et al. 2001, see also Ramirez-Bautista et al. 2014), arthropods, plants and small lizards (Heimes 2022)
Active (Hernandez-Salinas et al. 2023)/sit and wait (Cavalcanti et al. 2023)
e.g., Lara-Resendiz et al. 2014
(e.g., Lemos-Espinal and Dixon 2013, Olberding et al. 2016, Lara-Resendiz et al. 2014)/arboreal and saxicolous (Leyte-Manrique et al. 2019), "frequently on stone walls or fences" (Campillo-Garcia et al. 2021), scansorial (Heimes 2022)
1320-3000 (Ramirez-Bautista et al. 2014), "mainly pine forests, oak forests and scrub, at 1300–3533m" (Campillo-Garcia et al. 2021), 1200-3400 (Heimes 2022)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Sex decided by
- Genes, XX/XY
- Average clutch
- 8.05eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 3–17eggs
- Mean clutch
- 6.4–9.7eggs
- Clutches a year
- 1per year
- First breeds at
- 19.1months
6-10 (Dixon and Lemos-Espinal 2010), 3-10, mean 6.5 (Ramirez-Bautista and Davila-Ulloa 2009, Lopez-Alcaide et al. 2020 citing Feria-Ortiz et al., 2001 = Ortiz et al. 2001), see Lemos-Espinal and Dixon 2013, 3-10, mean 6.48 (Ortiz et al. 2001), 3-13 (Ramirez-Bautista et al. 2014), mean 6.68 (Zuniga-Vega et al. 2016), 3-17, means 7.78 and 9.7 (Jimenez-Arcos et al. 2017), 3-10 (Heimes 2022), Dominguez-Guerrero et al. 2022 (mean 6.5)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Pleurodonta
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Wiegmann
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1828
- Type locality
- Mexico
Keeping one
22 in × 22 in × 14 in(56 × 56 × 35 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 5.5 in (141 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 92 °F (33.2 °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.
10kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 79 g, the heaviest recorded for Crevice 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 · a typical adult
- — Body mass · adult female, mean
- — Body mass at hatching
- — Longest recorded life
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Clutches in a year
- — 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
- — Red List criteria
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest 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 torquatus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/sceloporus-torquatus
@misc{sceloporus_torquatus_2026,
title = {Sceloporus torquatus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/sceloporus-torquatus}
}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.