THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY

Reptilia    Squamata (part)    Teiidae  

Giant Ameiva
Ameiva ameiva (Linnaeus, 1758)

Current SSAR Comments:
Native to Brazil north to Venezuela and the Lesser Antilles. It was introduced via the pet trade in 1954 and is established in Miami, Miami-Dade County, Florida (Neil, 1957, Bulletin of the Florida State Museum, Biological Sciences 2: 175–220; Duellman and Schwartz, 1958, Bulletin of the Florida State Museum, Biological Sciences 3: 181–324; King and Krakauer, 1966, Quarterly Journal of the Florida Academy of Sciences 29: 144–154; Crowder, 1974, The exotic vertebrates of south Florida. South Florida Environmental Project Ecological Report No. DI–SFEP–74–30. U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife Pb-235 214, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. 45pp). It has since been found in Broward, Collier, and Monroe counties (Krysko, 2019, Ameiva ameiva ameiva. Pages 425–426 in Krysko et al. (Editors) Amphibians and Reptiles of Florida. University Press of Florida, Gainesville, Florida). Earlier confusion about the taxonomy of these lizards (Wilson and Porras, 1983, The Ecological Impact of Man on the South Florida Herpetofauna. University of Kansas Museum of Natural History, Special Publication 9: i–vi + 1–89) has been resolved by Ugueto and Harvey (2011, Herpetological Monographs. 25: 113–170).

Range maps are based on curated specimens and provided gratis by CNAH.
(Created by Travis W. Taggart; Version: 2023.04.08.09.47.40)
Download GeoJSON polygon range file: - 0.03 MB

First instance(s) of published English names:
No historic English names have been assigned to this taxon yet.

Taxon Links:

  
Catalog of American Amphibians and Reptiles
  
The Reptile Database
  
NatureServe
  
iNaturalist
  
GenBank
  
USGS - Nonindigenous Aquatic Species Database

Pertinent LIterature:
1758 Linné, Carl von (=Linneaus). Systema Naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis. [System of Nature through the three kingdoms of nature, according to classes, orders, genera, species with characters, differences, synonyms, places.] 10th Edition, Volume 1, L. Salvius, Stockholm. iv + 826pp.

THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY — Accessed: Thursday 30 January 2025 02:32 CT