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Abbreviation Legend
- (CE) - Criticially Endangered
- (CI) - Critically Imperiled
- (E) - Endangered
- (I) - Introduced
- (IM) - Imperiled
- (NT) - Near Threatened
- (T) - Threatened
- (V) - Vulnerable
- (**) - Recent Classification Change
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Home »» Lizards »» Teiidae (Whiptail and Racerunner Lizards)
Whiptail and Racerunner Lizards of the United States
Teiidae are long slender lizards with long whiplike tails and well developed legs. Movements are characteristically rapid and jerky. They range from 4 to 48 inches in length. Typically they have small round, non overlapping scales on the back and large rectangular scales on the underside. There are no bony plates (oteoderms) in the skin. The large regular head shields are fused to the skull. Whiptails are diurnal, terrestrial carnivores. Small species feed on insects and other invertebrates, while large species consume small mammals, birds and bird eggs, and other reptiles. Prey is located both by sight and by smell or taste, by means of a long deeply forked tongue. All teiids are egg layers. In most species, females produce fertile eggs only after breeding with males of the same species. However, there are true unisexual species among Cnemidophorus. All individuals are females, so there is no mating. A mature female lays fertile, but unfertilized, eggs that hatch into more females.
There are 29 species, representing 4 genus, found in the United States with 24 species being native and 5 species being Introduced.
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