Argentine black and white tegu

Argentine black and white tegu
Male
Female
Conservation status
Least Concern  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
CITES Appendix II (CITES)[2]
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Reptilia
Order:	Squamata
Family:	Teiidae
Genus:	Salvator
Species:	S. merianae
Binomial name
Salvator merianae A.M.C. Duméril & Bibron, 1839[3]
Synonyms[4]
Salvator merianae A.M.C. Duméril & Bibron, 1839 Teius teguixim — Gray, 1845 Tupinambis teguixin — Boulenger, 1885 Tupinambis merianae — Dirksen & De la Riva, 1999 Salvator merianae — Harvey et al., 2012

The Argentine black and white tegu (Salvator merianae), also known as the Argentine giant tegu, the black and white tegu, or the huge tegu,^[1] is a species of lizard in the family Teiidae. The species is the largest of the "tegu lizards".^[5] It is an omnivorous species which inhabits the tropical rain forests, savannas and semi-deserts of eastern and central South America. They are native to southeastern Brazil, Uruguay, eastern Paraguay, and Argentina.^[6]

Tegus are sometimes kept as pets by humans. They are notable for their unusually high intelligence and can also be housebroken. Like other reptiles, tegus go into brumation in autumn when the temperature drops. They exhibit a high level of activity during their wakeful period of the year. They are the only known extant non-avian reptiles to be partly endothermic.

Tegus fill ecological niches similar to those of monitor lizards, but are only distantly related to them; the similarities are an example of convergent evolution.