🐊 Reptiles

Reptiles have dry skin covered in scales or plates. Their bodies warm up from the Sun, so you often see them basking. Snakes, lizards, turtles and crocodiles are reptiles.

The biggest and the smallest here: the green anaconda and the Mojave desert tortoise

🧒 our measuring child, 4 ft1.2 m🐍 Green anaconda, 26 ft8 m long🐢 Mojave desert tortoise, 11.4 in29 cm long🔍 Pip the pangolin zoomed in 10 times on the Mojave desert tortoise

⚖️ Compare them

What makes a reptile?

Dry skin covered in scales or hard plates.
They warm up from the Sun and cool down in the shade.
They breathe air with lungs.
Most lay eggs with leathery shells on land.

11 animals here

Record holders here

Fastest: the Komodo dragon, 9.9 to 12 mph16 to 20 km/h1
Heaviest: the American alligator, 1,000 lb454 kg2
Lives longest: the Aldabra giant tortoise, 100 years100 years3

Reptiles for kids, A to Z

🐢 Aldabra giant tortoise: A giant island tortoise that can live for a very long time.
🐊 American alligator: It digs pools in the swamp that help other animals in dry weather.
🐍 Common garter snake: A striped backyard snake that gives birth to live babies.
🦎 Gila monster: One of the few venomous lizards, and it stores fat in its tail.
🐍 Green anaconda: The heaviest snake alive floats in rivers with just its eyes showing.
🐢 Green sea turtle: It grazes on seagrass underwater, like a cow in a meadow.
🦎 Komodo dragon: The biggest lizard alive, with a forked tongue that tastes the air.
🐢 Leatherback sea turtle: The only sea turtle without a hard shell, and it eats jellyfish.
🐢 Loggerhead sea turtle: Named for its big head and jaws that crunch crab and clam shells.
🐢 Mojave desert tortoise: It spends most of its life in underground burrows, away from desert heat.
🐊 Saltwater crocodile: The biggest reptile alive, at home in rivers and even the sea.

Smithsonian's National Zoo, Komodo dragon, checked 30 October 2026.
Smithsonian's National Zoo, checked 30 October 2026.
Smithsonian's National Zoo, checked 30 October 2026.