Reptile & Amphibian Forums

In my attempts to get a positive classification of the Tegu I am thinking of buying, I discovered that there is very little information available for classifying Tegus.
Some sites have detailed information on only one or two species and much of the information is vague or contradictory.

So I have started a basic table of the Tupinambis genus and invite all of you to check it out and let me know what you think.

I would be particularly grateful for any corrections, or additional information anyone can give me so that I can improve this table.

Here is the link:  Tupinambis Table

Thanks in advance and I hope this proves useful for you all.

Thomas

The Colombian tegu, gold tegu,Argentin blk&wht, Red tegu , and blue tegu , are the only tegus that are offered in the pet trade.Duseni ( The yellow tegu) comes from southwest Brazil and is not being inported. (I think there only in a national park In Brazil and are protected).,Quadrilineatus and, Longilineus, are also not availible in the pet trade.I think the blue tegus may be relatid to the yellow tegu in some way . They are the only two Species that have dark spots on there nose.also I read that Yellow and Red tegus Are closely related. This may be the resone that blues and reds have crossed bread. I found this at www.chicagoherp.org/herpetol/sums0200.htm. This is what I thought that this has said. If im wrong mabye someone could give what they are saying .(there is alot of big words used in this articale). Hope this helps. take care Russ

Gold tegus can have black noses too =P
here is a gold tegu picture that the photographer says it is from Trinidad ( I have never seen a live one from there )
http://www.richard-seaman.com/Wallpaper/Nature/Reptiles/GoldenTeguLizard.jpg

here is another gold tegu
http://www.bluetegu.com/images/perugoldtegu.jpg
I bought it from an importer in California who brought it out of Peru. Black and white tegus also occur in Peru .

The countries these tegus all come from share borders and the father the animals gets from their original starting point the more they are likely to change (maybe interbreed since weather conditions also change ) . When they were importing red tegus out of Argentina years ago I never saw an adult male that was any color but bright red . I saw adult male red tegus come in from Paraguay that ranged in color from bright red to dull brown . There was a picutre on the net a few years ago of a red tegu male from brazil that was almost chocolate brown .
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Stella St.Pierre
www.bluetegu.com

Tegu taxonomy is in the same shape as that of Boa constrictor .
That's why you see so many names for color phases and geographic variants .

Nigropuntactus is the name that was originally given to what is now considered to be teguixin (probably because the gold ones that came out of Surname and Guayana were spotted )
Argentine black and white tegus at that time were considered to be teguixin , the meriane name was not given to it untill much later .
As far as I can remember rufescens has always been rufescens .
I think the others were either were changed to either rufecens or teguixin.

When the Argentine tegu was classifed as merianae it stated that this tegu only occurs in Argentina and bordering it but it distinguished it from rufecens .
At hatchling these meriane tegus don't look anything like teguixin (they have very bright green heads and backs ) As adults the males get very large heads and jowls an dhave very textured skin . This is a very heavy bodied tegu that can grow to almost 5 feet . (average size for male is probably like 15 or more pounds)

rufescens are the red tegus - these are also very heavy bodied tegus that can grow to about 4 1/2 feet .The biggest one I have ever seen was a male I had that weighed 27 lbs (he was very old) the red tegus from Argentina are born brown in color with same body shape as the Argentine black and whites . The furthur north you go the color seems to vary as the ones the imported out of Paraguay recently have varied much in color (males from very bright red to dull brown)

teguixin - is classifed as pretty much everything else
there are some definate variations in these tegus do to locality . In common they have much smoother skin and are not nearly as heavy bodied . None of the ones I have kept seem to handle cold weather either .

Stella
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Stella St.Pierre
www.bluetegu.com

Stella, thank you so much for your information. It's great that all you experts are out there and prepared to contribute what you know.

I have updated the Tupinambis Taxonomy Table accordingly and hope that it gives a fair overview of the situation.

Your example of the mess this field is in really struck a chord too as I also keep boa constrictors.

If any more of you have information ("official" or otherwise) to make the Tupinambis Taxonomy Table more accurate please get in touch.

Thomas

I am by no means an expert , I do not study taxonomy . I just keep tegus as pets and breed them because I really like them.

Here is what I believe to be the latest classification (found on a cities site) The only ones I have seen myself are rufecens , merianae and teguixin .

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a)Tupinambis longilineus Avila Pires, 1995. Distribution: only known from a small area in south-western Amazon Basin in Brazil (States Rondônia and Amazonas);

b)Tupinambis merianae (Duméril & Bibron, 1839) [formerly known as T. teguixin (Linnaeus,1758)]. Distribution: Northern Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, southern Brazil, extending intosouthern Amazonian Brazil;

c)Tupinambis rufescens (Günther, 1871) (also includes Tupinambis duseni Lönnberg, 1910).Distribution: Argentina, Paraguay, southern and central Brazil;

d)Tupinambis quadrilineatus Manzani & Abe, 1997 (also includes Tupinambis cerradensis Colli,Péres & Cunha, 1998). Distribution: West Central Brazil (States of Goiás, Mato Grosso andTocantins).

e)Tupinambis teguixin (Linnaeus, 1758) [formerly Tupinambis nigropunctatus (Spix, 1824)].Distribution: Colombia, Venezuela, Guianas, Amazonian basin of Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia andBrazil, in Brazil south into the State of Sao Paulo
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Stella St.Pierre
www.bluetegu.com

Fascinating.
I see that Cites only mention five of the six "Official" species, citing duseni as a variation of rufescens.
Also interesting that they see nigropunctatus as a former definition of teguixin.

Thank you again - I'll update the table.

Thomas

I don't anything about taxonmy and why they changed things . It's very confusing just like it is with the Boas. I found that listing while doing a search last night it may or may not be correct , I don't know .

The last reasearch paper I read , have it around here somewhere , was when the changed the merianae . All I can remember it saying was that they where the ones that occured in Argentina and just touching it and that these tegus has a split loreal scale but that some populations of teguixin also had split loreal scales and the . Having bred the ones that come out of Argentina all I can tell you is that the babies don't look anything like the other tegus I have kept since they are born bright green .

As a hobby keeper I can only tell you what difference I see in behavior between the ones I keep and have kept in the past .
They are all definatly a "tegu " =P but they all act different in captivity and appear a little different .

Having kept Boas also I know they list the boa out of Colombia , El Salvador and the Hog Island one as the same species Boa constrictor imperator . Having kept these 3 I know they don't look alike and they don't breed alike or produce the same amount of babies . /shrug If you want to get totally confused Boa constrictor and Tupinambis are the place to do it =)
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Stella St.Pierre
www.bluetegu.com

Interesting table. The top part is a nice chart of the Latin and common names. The explantions at the bottom are just silly. This person obviously knows nothing about evolution, systematics or even biology. It is so sad to see someone deseminating erroniouos information.

Brian

I believe that Fakir has really tried to make sense of all the information, and misinformation available on the net and elsewhere, and was asking for input from those on this forum to correct any misinformation. Some of the very respected posters on this forum added their input, which was posted on Fakir's site. What did your post contribute?

Leslie

Bast, leaving aside your precipitous and vague approach to the subject, could you elaborate?

Could you qualify your position and explain exactly what is wrong with the information so that I can correct it and it will no longer be "so sad to see someone deseminating erroniouos information".

I will let the comment about knowing "nothing about evolution, systematics or even biology" pass until my knowledge of all three allows me to ascertain whether the Bast creature is high enough up the evolutionary ladder to merit a response.

Thomas

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