Amphibia · Caudata
Siren lacertinaÖsterdam, 1766
Greater Siren
Photograph by Wes Anderson, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A nocturnal salamander reaching 978 mm nose to tail.
Amphibia › Caudata › Sirenidae › Siren
- Grows to
- 978mm
- greatest recorded
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives up to
- 25years
- Lives
- Aquatic, fossorial, terrestrial
What is known
21 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
- Conservation status
- Least Concern
- Population trend
- Stable
as reported by the IUCN Red List
The animal itself
- Longest recorded life
- 25years
Size
- Length snout to vent · adult mean
- 35.8mm1.5 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 978mm3 ft 3 in
- Body mass · greatestmeasured
- 1000g2.2 lb
mean adult snout-to-vent length; this source did not separate the sexes for this species
total length, tail included — this source reports total length for Caudata and Gymnophiona
maximum adult body mass as recorded in the source
How it lives
- Eats arthropods
- Yes
- Eats vertebrates
- Yes
- Eats plant matter
- Unknown
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Aquatic, fossorial, terrestrial
a blank flag in this source means unrecorded, not absent
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- How the young develop
- Through a larval stage
- Average clutch
- 500
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 100–1400eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 1per year
- Mature at
- 3–4years
- Size at maturity
- 260–400mm10–15.5 in
AnAge rates this record "acceptable"
Naming and history
- Described by
- Österdam
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1766
Keeping one
- Water, at least 196 cm deep
- 391 × 196cm
Minimum, and for two animals — which is how the standard states it. Bigger is always better.
This animal lives in water, so the standard gives 4 × 2 body lengths of water and no land area, for two animals.
For each further animal, another 98 × 98 cm of water.
Swiss Tierschutzverordnung (TSchV), SR 455.1, Anhang 2, Tabelle 6 — legally binding minimum enclosure sizes for amphibians, given as multiples of total body length and stated for two animals.
From this animal’s own total length of 3 ft 3 in (978 mm) — how this is worked out.
Greater Siren
Feeding
91kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 1,000 g, the heaviest recorded for Greater Siren — 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.
- — Still living
- — Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- — Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- — Length snout to vent · adult male mean
- — Female length · mean, nose to tail
- — Length nose to tail · adult male mean
- — Length nose to tail · adult mean
- — Largest female · snout to vent
- — Largest male · snout to vent
- — Largest female · shell length
- — Largest male · shell length
- — Hatchling length · snout to vent
- — Hatchling length · nose to tail
- — Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — Body mass · adult female, mean
- — Body mass at hatching
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- — Diet
- — How it hunts
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Mean clutch · smallest reported
- — Mean clutch · largest reported
- — 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
- — Venomous
- — Fangs
- — Body temp in the wild · lowest mean recorded
- — Body temp in the wild · highest mean recorded
- — Limbs
- — Colour on the back
- — Pattern on the back
- — Pupil
- — Sex decided by
- — Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- — Red List criteria
- — Region
- — Biome
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Suborder
- — Infraorder
- — Subspecies
- — Type locality
- — Habitat
- — Active in
- — Mainland or island
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
- — Highest it lives · above sea level
- — Range size
Others in Sirenidae
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). Siren lacertina. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/siren-lacertina
@misc{siren_lacertina_2026,
title = {Siren lacertina},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/siren-lacertina}
}Sources
- Oliveira, B.F. et al. (2017). AmphiBIO, a global database for amphibian ecological traits. Scientific Data 4:170123. Used under CC BY 4.0.
- AnAge, Human Ageing Genomic Resources (de Magalhães et al.), used under CC BY 3.0.
- GBIF Secretariat. GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Used under CC BY 4.0. Common names aggregated from constituent checklists.
- Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.
- Huang, N. et al. (2023). Amphibian traits database: a global database on morphological traits of amphibians. Global Ecology and Biogeography 32, 633-641. Used under CC BY 4.0.
- Moura, M. R. et al. TetrapodTraits: a database of 33,281 tetrapod species. Used under CC BY 4.0. Observed values only; this encyclopedia does not publish its imputed predictions.