Reptilia · Squamata
Trogonophis wiegmanniKaup, 1830
Checkerboard Worm Lizard
Photograph by Wouter Beukema, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A burrowing, active by day or night, meat-eating lizard from the Saharo-Sindian region, reaching 240 mm snout to vent.
Reptilia › Squamata › Trogonophidae › Trogonophis
- Grows to
- 240mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Lives up to
- 14years
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
- 2008
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 14years
- Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradientmeasured
- 22–23°C72–73 °F
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 22°C72 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 22°C
Honegger 1969 say 3 years - short compared with age at maturity, so is Snider and Bowler 1992 reporting 2… Slavens and Slavens 1999 report of 14 years,
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 240mm9.5 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 146.6mm5.75 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 146.6mm5.75 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 70.75mm2.75 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 70.8mm2.75 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 14.03g0.49 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 0.6g0.02 oz
max 240 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
- Active foraging
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Where it lives
- Fossorial
- Habitat
- Forest, Grassland, Shrubland
- Biome
- Mediterranean
- Region
- Saharo-Sindian
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Lowest it lives · above sea level
- 120m
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1800m
- Range size
- 505,997km²
ants and termites (Schleich et al. 1996, see also del Marmol et al. 2019) / invertebrates (Loveridge 1941, Martin et al. 2013)/snails (Baeckens et al. 2016)
Banfi et al. 2023
Diurnal / nocturnal and early morning (Schleich et al. 1996) / nocturnal (del Marmol et al. 2019)
e.g., del Marmol et al. 2019
0-1800 (del Marmol et al. 2019)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Average clutch
- 5eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–5eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 0.75per year
- Clutches a year
- 0.33–1per year
- First breeds at
- 30months
2-5, "apparently just 1 in the Chafarinas islands" (del Marmol et al. 2019)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Amphisbaenia
- Infraorder
- Amphisbaenia (Laterata)
- Subspecies
- Trogonophis wiegmanni wiegmanni KAUP 1830 Trogonophis wiegmanni elegans (GERVAIS 1835)
- Described by
- Kaup
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1830
- Type locality
- Algeria
Keeping one
3 ft 2 in × 3 ft 2 in × 23.5 in(96 × 96 × 60 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better. Substrate at least 4.75 in (12 cm) deep.
The standard sizes ground-dwelling species at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times snout-vent length.
Burrows, so substrate deep enough to dig in matters as much as floor area.
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 9.5 in (240 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 72–73 °F (22–23 °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.
2kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 14 g, the heaviest recorded for Checkerboard Worm 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
- — Mean clutch · smallest reported
- — Mean clutch · largest reported
- — 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
- — Population trend
- — Red List criteria
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
Others in Trogonophidae
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). Trogonophis wiegmanni. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/trogonophis-wiegmanni
@misc{trogonophis_wiegmanni_2026,
title = {Trogonophis wiegmanni},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/trogonophis-wiegmanni}
}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.