Reptilia · Squamata
Tupinambis teguixinLinnaeus, 1758
Black Tegu
Photograph by RAP, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, day-active, omnivorous lizard from the Neotropic region, reaching 500 mm snout to vent.
Also called Common Golden Tegu, Golden Tegu.
Once published as Tupinambis nigropunctatus — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Teiidae › Tupinambis
- Grows to
- 500mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Omnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 16.1years
Longer than 98% of all species in Teiidae 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 52.4 to 614 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
- 2015
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 16.1years
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 33.5°C92 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 32–35°C90–95 °F
Carey and Judge 2000, De Magalhaes & Costa 2009, Slavens and Slavens 1999: 16.1; Petzold 2008: 16.1
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 500mm19.5 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 321mm12.5 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 321mm12.5 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 90mm3.5 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 90mm3.5 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 4434g9.8 lb
- Body mass · a typical adult
- 1773.5g3.9 lb
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 19.5g0.69 oz
max 500 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
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest, Savanna
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Active season · months of the year
- 7–12months
- Region
- Neotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Lowest it lives · above sea level
- 100m
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 410m
- Range size
- 9,385,193km²
- Density
- 0.77per hectare
(e.g., Beebe 1945, Murphy 1997, Milstead 1961, Torres-Carvajal and Salazar-Valenzuela 2013, Herrera and Robinson 2000, see also Colli et al. 1998)/ vertebrates (Vitt and de Carvalho 1995, Pianka and Vitt 2003)
e.g., Fenker et al. 2020
e.g., Ribeiro-Junior and Amaral 2016, Fenker et al. 2020, Uchoa et al. 2022
Terrestrial and Leaf Litter (Vitt and de Carvalho 1995), terrestrial (e.g., Ribeiro-Junior and Amaral 2016)
5-405 (Uchoa et al. 2022)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 11.95eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 2–32eggs
- Mean clutch
- 2.5–21.4eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 1per year
- Clutches a year
- 1per year
4-32 (Torres-Carvajal and Salazar-Valenzuela 2013), 11-17, but captive clutches to 49 (Herrera and Robinson 2000, who suspect with others, that a 54 burried clutch is composed ofseveral clutches), 14 (Fenker et al. 2020), 13-29 (Uchoa et al. 2022)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Laterata
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Linnaeus
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1758
- Type locality
- Indiis
Keeping one
6 ft 7 in × 6 ft 7 in × 4 ft 1 in(200 × 200 × 125 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.
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 19.5 in (500 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 92 °F (33.5 °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.
342kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 4,434 g, the heaviest recorded for Black Tegu — 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
- — First breeds from · youngest recorded
- — First breeds by · oldest recorded
- — 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
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
Others in Teiidae
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). Tupinambis teguixin. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/tupinambis-teguixin
@misc{tupinambis_teguixin_2026,
title = {Tupinambis teguixin},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/tupinambis-teguixin}
}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.