This is a list of

reptiles Reptiles, as most commonly defined are the animals in the Class (biology), class Reptilia ( ), a paraphyletic grouping comprising all sauropsid, sauropsids except birds. Living reptiles comprise turtles, crocodilians, Squamata, squamates (lizar ...

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

. The reptilian diversity in Sri Lanka is higher than the diversity of other vertebrates such as mammals and fish with 181 reptile species. All extant reptiles are well documented through research by many local and foreign scientists and naturalists. Sri Lankan herpetologist, Anslem de Silva largely studied the biology and ecology of Sri Lanka snakes, where he documented 96 species of land and sea snakes. Five genera are endemic to Sri Lanka - ''Aspidura'', ''Balanophis'', ''Cercaspis'', ''Haplocercus'', and ''Pseudotyphlops''. Out of them only five of the land snakes are considered potentially deadly and life threatening to humans. Among snakes, 54 are endemic to Sri Lanka. The total increased to 107 with new descriptions of ''Dendrelaphis'', ''Rhinophis'', ''Aspidura'' and ''Dryocalamus''. Lizard diversity in the island has been documented and studied by many local scientists and researchers such as Imesh Nuwan Bandara, Kalana Maduwage, Anjana Silva, Rohan Pethiyagoda, and Kelum Manamendra-Arachchi. There are 111 lizards known from Sri Lanka, with 17 newly discovered in 2006, and two more in 2016 and 2017. One of species was discovered in 2019 from Ensalwatta, Matara. In 2019, seven more endemic day geckos have been discovered by Suranjan Karunaratne and Mendis Wickramasinghe. In December 2019, three more endemic geckos were discovered. In May 2020, another endemic skink was discovered. Three new day gecko species were discovered in 2021. Apart from them, Sri Lanka is home to two species of crocodiles, and nine species of turtles. This is a list of reptiles found in

Order: Squamata - scaled reptiles

Suborder: Serpentes - snakes

Family: Acrochordidae - wart snakes

Family: Boidae - boas

Family: Pythonidae - pythons

Family:
Colubridae Colubridae (, commonly known as colubrids , from la, coluber, 'snake') is a family of snakes. With 249 genera, it is the largest snake family. The earliest species of the family date back to the Oligocene epoch. Colubrid snakes are found on ever ...
- colubers

Family: Cylindrophiidae - pipe snakes

Family: Elapidae - elapids

Subfamily: Hydrophiinae - sea snakes

Family: Typhlopidae - blind snakes

Family: Uropeltidae - shield-tailed snakes

Family: Viperidae - vipers and pit vipers

Suborder:
Lacertilia 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 althou ...
- lizards

Family:
Agamidae Agamidae is a family (biology), family of over 300 species of iguanian lizards indigenous to Africa, Asia, Australia, and a few in Southern Europe. Many species are commonly called dragons or dragon lizards. Overview phylogenetics, Phylogenetic ...
- agamid lizards

Family: Chamaeleonidae - chameleons

Family: Gekkonidae - geckoes

Family:
Lacertidae The Lacertidae are the family (biology), family of the wall lizards, true lizards, or sometimes simply lacertas, which are native to Afro-Eurasia. It is a diverse family with at least 300 species in 39 genera. They represent the dominant group o ...
- wall lizards

Family: Scincidae - skinks

Family: Varanidae - monitor lizards

Order: Crocodilia - crocodiles

Family:
Crocodylidae Crocodiles (family Crocodylidae) or true crocodiles are large semiaquatic reptiles that live throughout the tropics in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Australia. The term crocodile is sometimes used even more loosely to include all extant mem ...
- true crocodiles

Order: Testudines - turtles

Family:
Bataguridae The Geoemydidae (formerly known as Bataguridae) are one of the largest and most diverse families in the order Testudines (turtles), with about 70 species. The family includes the Eurasian pond and river turtles and Neotropical wood turtles. Memb ...
- Asian terrapins

Family: Cheloniidae - sea turtles

Family:
Dermochelyidae Dermochelyidae is a family of turtles which has seven extinct genera and one extant genus, including the largest living sea turtles. Classification of known genera The following list of dermochelyid species was published by Hirayama and Tong in ...
- leatherback turtles

Family:
Emydidae Emydidae (Latin ''emys'' (freshwater tortoise) + Ancient Greek εἶδος (''eîdos'', “appearance, resemblance”)) is a family of testudines (turtles) that includes close to 50 species in 10 genera. Members of this family are commonly calle ...
- American hard-shelled turtles

Family: Testudinidae - tortoises

Family: Trionychidae - softshells

References

External links

SrilLankanReptiles.com

Wildreach.com
{{Fauna of Sri Lanka .

Reptiles Reptiles, as most commonly defined are the animals in the Class (biology), class Reptilia ( ), a paraphyletic grouping comprising all sauropsid, sauropsids except birds. Living reptiles comprise turtles, crocodilians, Squamata, squamates (lizar ...

Taxa named by Anslem de Silva