Reptilia · Squamata
Teira dugesiiMilne-Edwards, 1829
Madeira Wall Lizard
Photograph placed in the public domain, CC0, via iNaturalist
A rock-dwelling, day-active, omnivorous lizard from the Palearctic region, reaching 81 mm snout to vent.
Once published as Lacerta dugesii, Podarcis dugesii — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Lacertidae › Teira
- Grows to
- 81mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Omnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 41years
Longer than 76% of all species in Lacertidae 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 35 to 444 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
44 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
- 2008
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 41years
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 33.8°C93 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 33.8°C
Carey and Judge 2000, De Magalhaes & Costa 2009 (4.8), Jesus 2012 (16), Margry and Heitmans 2021 (1 captive male lived for 41 years)
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 81mm3.25 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 60.9mm2.5 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 60.9mm2.5 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 30.8mm1.25 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 30.8mm1.25 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 12.27g0.43 oz
- Body mass · a typical adult
- 7.29g0.26 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 0.67g0.02 oz
max 81 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
AnAge rates this record "acceptable"
How it lives
- Diet
- Omnivorous
- How it hunts
- Active foraging
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Saxicolous
- Habitat
- Forest, Rocky, Shrubland
- Biome
- Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests
- Region
- Palearctic
- Mainland or island
- Found only on islands
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1870m
- Range size
- 815km²
- Density
- 1626–10,982per hectare
(mainly ants, Rogner 1997b) see also Galan and Vicente 2003, invertebrates and 24-70% plants by volume (Sadek 1981, see Table 4c), seabird hatchlings (Matias et al. 2009), Rato et al. 2022 ("plants representing almost 74% of the diet occurrences in contrast to the 26% of animal prey... As males grew bigger and heavier, they significantly increased their plant matter intake")
Active foraging
e.g., Arbuckle and Arbuckle 2023
Saxicolous, also arboreal (Malkmus 2004)
0-1850 (e.g., Arbuckle and Arbuckle 2023)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Sex decided by
- Genes, ZW/ZZ
- Average clutch
- 2.5eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–5eggs
- Mean clutch
- 2.4–2.6eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 2per year
- Clutches a year
- 1–3per year
- First breeds at
- 15months
2-5, mean 2.44 (Galan and Vicente 2003), 1-3 (Maso and Pijoan 2011)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Laterata
- Subspecies
- Teira dugesii dugesii (MILNE-EDWARDS 1829) Teira dugesii selvagensis (BISCHOFF, OSENEGG & MAYER 1989) Teira dugesii jogeri (BISCHOFF, OSENEGG & MAYER 1989) Teira dugesii mauli (MERTENS 1938)
- Described by
- Milne-Edwards
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1829
- Type locality
- Portugal
Keeping one
13 in × 13 in × 8 in(32 × 32 × 20 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 3.25 in (81 mm), at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
Active animals measured in the wild averaged 93 °F (33.8 °C).
Mean body temperature of active individuals measured in nature. 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.
2kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 12 g, the heaviest recorded for Madeira Wall 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 · adult female, mean
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — 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
- — Red List criteria
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
Others in Lacertidae
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). Teira dugesii. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/teira-dugesii
@misc{teira_dugesii_2026,
title = {Teira dugesii},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/teira-dugesii}
}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.
- AnAge, Human Ageing Genomic Resources (de Magalhães et al.), used under CC BY 3.0.