Argentine black and white tegu
Salvator merianae
— Where the name comes from
Merianae is dedicated to Maria Sibylla Merian, who in 1699, aged fifty-two, sailed for Surinam with her daughter to draw tropical insects and reptiles from life: her plates changed how nature was depicted and are still used as scientific documents. Tegu comes instead from the Tupi teiú, the animal’s name in Brazil.
— Facts
- Group
- Reptiles · Reptilia
- Order
- Squamates
- Habitat
- Cerrado, dry forest, farmland, town edges
- Range
- Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, northern Argentina
- Size
- 1.2–1.4 m including the tail, 4–7 kg
- Diet
- Omnivorous — fruit, eggs, insects, rodents, carrion
- Lifespan
- 20 years
— Characteristics
- 01
It spends the winter dormant in a burrow it digs itself.
- 02
It runs on two legs for short stretches when chased.
- 03
In South America it is often half-tame and wanders around yards.
— What sets it apart
It warms itself up, and it should not be able to. In 2016 it was found that during the breeding season this lizard raises its own temperature by as much as ten degrees above the surroundings at night, when no external heat source exists: it produces the heat metabolically, as mammals and birds do, and then goes back to being an ordinary cold-blooded reptile for the rest of the year. It is the first known case of seasonal endothermy in a reptile, and it has reopened the argument about how warm blood arose.
