Reptilia · Squamata
Xenosaurus phalaroanthereonNieto-Montes de Oca, Campbell, Flores-Villela, 2001
Chin-spotted Knob-scaled Lizard
No photograph of this species exists under a license anyone may reuse. It gets the same page regardless.
A rock-dwelling, active by day or night, meat-eating lizard from the Neotropic region, reaching 130 mm snout to vent.
Reptilia › Squamata › Xenosauridae › Xenosaurus
- Grows to
- 130mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Lives
- Saxicolous
What is known
37 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
- Data Deficient
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2007
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 20.3°C69 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 20.3°C
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 130mm5 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 117.9mm4.75 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 117.9mm4.75 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 54.8mm2.25 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 54.8mm2.25 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 51.99g1.8 oz
max 130 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
- Sit and wait
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Where it lives
- Saxicolous
- Habitat
- Forest, Rocky
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Dry Broadleaf Forests
- Region
- Neotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 1670–2200m
- Range size
- 1363km²
a mouse (Garcia-Vazquez et al. 2009), arthropods (Lemos-Espinal et al. 2012)
Mesquita et al. 2016
probably nocturnal or crepuscular (Lemos-Espinal and Smith 2005), "observed" (Garcia-Padilla and Mata-Silva 2014) - does that mean diurnal?
e.g, Mesquita et al. 2016
2185 (Woolrich-Pina et al. 2020)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Average clutch
- 2.17eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–4eggs
- Mean clutch
- 2–2.34eggs
- Clutches a year
- 0.9–1per year
mean 2 (Lemos-Espinal et al. 2012), mean 2.3 (Woolrich-Pina et al. 2014, Mesquita et al. 2016), means 2-2.3 (Zuniga-Vega et al. 2017)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Anguimoprha
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Nieto-Montes de Oca, Campbell, Flores-Villela
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 2001
- Type locality
- Mexico
Keeping one
20.5 in × 20.5 in × 13 in(52 × 52 × 33 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 in (130 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 69 °F (20.3 °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.
7kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 52 g, the heaviest recorded for Chin-spotted Knob-scaled 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
- — Body mass at hatching
- — Longest recorded life
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Clutches in a year
- — 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
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
Others in Xenosauridae
- Arboreal Knob-scaled Lizard
- Flathead Knob-scaled Lizard
- Knob-scaled Lizard
- Mountain Knob-scaled Lizard
- Newman's Knob-scaled Lizard
- Pallid Knob-scaled Lizard
- Pena's Knob-scaled Lizard
- Rackham’s Knob-scaled Lizard
- San Martin Knob-scaled Lizard
- Zacualtipá́n Knob-scaled Lizard
- Xenosaurus fractus
- Xenosaurus mendozai
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). Xenosaurus phalaroanthereon. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/xenosaurus-phalaroanthereon
@misc{xenosaurus_phalaroanthereon_2026,
title = {Xenosaurus phalaroanthereon},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/xenosaurus-phalaroanthereon}
}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.