Feeds on soft fruits and flowers, beetles, grasshoppers, caterpillars, and millipedes. Will take smaller lizards as well. Sometimes will share its home with a dwarf mongoose or a snake. They also live in cracks in small rocky mounds. Lays 2-4 large, oval eggs in moist soil.
Plated lizards have a groove running laterally along the length of the body.
This groove contains skin that is not covered with plated scales and allows for expansion. Since Great Plated Lizard is the ISIS name for G. major that is what is being used in zoo records. Several in the African Savanna area. 1. Branch, Bill. Bill Branch's Field Guide to the Snakes and Other Reptiles of Southern Africa, Ralph Curtis Pub, p.151.