Argentine black and white tegu

The Argentine black and white tegu (Salvator merianae), also commonly known as the Argentine giant tegu, the black and white tegu, the blue tegu, and the huge tegu, is a species of lizards in the family Teiidae. The species is the largest of the "tegu" lizards. It is an omnivorous species, which inhabits the tropical rain forests, savannas, and semideserts of eastern and central South America. It is native to south and southeastern Brazil, Uruguay, eastern Paraguay, Bolivia, and Argentina.

Tegu lizards are sometimes kept as pets, being notable for their unusually high intelligence and their ability to 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 nonavian 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.