The gold tegu, also known as the golden tegu, common tegu, black tegu, Colombian black and white tegu and tiger lizard (in

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

), is a species of

tegu Tegu is a common name of a number of species of lizards that belong to the families Teiidae and Gymnophthalmidae. Tegus are native to Central and South America. They occupy a variety of habitats and are known for their large size and predator ...

. Its old scientific name (synonym) was ''Tupinambis nigropunctatus'', but it has since renamed to ''Tupinambis teguixin''. Gold tegus grow to be about 2 to 3 ft (60 to 100 cm) long on average, and up to 3.5 to 4.0 kg in weight, with a glossy body, powerful limbs and a thick tail. They have many black and gold stripes down their bodies. Gold tegus live in the tropical forests of northern and central

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...

, as well as in

Panama Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Cos ...

. They feed on

insect Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs ...

s, other invertebrates (such as

snail A snail is, in loose terms, a shelled gastropod. The name is most often applied to land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs. However, the common name ''snail'' is also used for most of the members of the molluscan class Gastro ...

s), small

mammal Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur or ...

s, other

reptile Reptiles, as most commonly defined are the animals in the class Reptilia ( ), a paraphyletic grouping comprising all sauropsids except birds. Living reptiles comprise turtles, crocodilians, squamates (lizards and snakes) and rhynchocephalians ( ...

s (such as smaller

lizard Lizards are a widespread group of squamate reptiles, with over 7,000 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica, as well as most oceanic island chains. The group is paraphyletic since it excludes the snakes and Amphisbaenia alt ...

s and small

snake Snakes are elongated, Limbless vertebrate, limbless, carnivore, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes . Like all other Squamata, squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping Scale (zoology), scales. Ma ...

s) and

birds Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

, as well as

fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of li ...

, nesting

egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the a ...

s of birds,

turtle Turtles are an order of reptiles known as Testudines, characterized by a special shell developed mainly from their ribs. Modern turtles are divided into two major groups, the Pleurodira (side necked turtles) and Cryptodira (hidden necked tu ...

s and

caiman A caiman (also cayman as a variant spelling) is an alligatorid belonging to the subfamily Caimaninae, one of two primary lineages within the Alligatoridae family, the other being alligators. Caimans inhabit Mexico, Central and South America fro ...

s, and sometimes

fruit In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particu ...

and

honey Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies. Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining the sugary secretions of plants (primar ...

. They typically do not make as good a pet as their larger southern relatives, the

Argentine black and white tegu The Argentine black and white tegu (''Salvator merianae''), also known as the Argentine giant tegu, the black and white tegu, the huge tegu, is a species of lizard in the Family (biology), family Teiidae. The species is the largest of the "tegu l ...

or the red tegu, but if handled frequently, they can make a good pet.

References

Bibliograqphy

* Bartlett, R.D., and Bartlett, P. (2003). ''Reptiles and Amphibians of the Amazon: An Ecotourist's Guide'',

External links

*
Photos at Animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu

* Alice Osborne Curwen
"The telencephalon of tupinambis nigropunctatus"
''Journal of Comparative Neurology'' (April 1937).
Gold Tegu Care
Tupinambis Reptiles of Bolivia Reptiles of Brazil Reptiles of Colombia Reptiles of Ecuador Reptiles of French Guiana Reptiles of Guyana Reptiles of Suriname Reptiles of Peru Reptiles of Venezuela Reptiles described in 1758 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus {{lizard-stub