All Angles Creatures
Squamata · AgamidaeEntry 443 of 21,572

Reptilia · Squamata

Agama insularisChabanaud, 1918

Insular Agama

No photograph of this species exists under a license anyone may reuse. It gets the same page regardless.

A rock-dwelling lizard from the Afrotropic region, reaching 123 mm snout to vent.

ReptiliaSquamataAgamidaeAgama

Grows to
123mm
greatest recorded
Lives
Saxicolous
Weighs up to
63.56g
greatest
Red List
Least Concern
Body length across Agamidae

Longer than 72% of all agamids anyone has measured.

72% of 583 species are smaller28% larger
32 mmthe whole family, smallest to largest418 mm

The bar is the rank itself: its length is the share of the family this animal exceeds. The chart below is the family’s real spread, on a logarithmic scale because body length here runs from 32 to 418 mm. The solid rule is this animal. Every bar is a count of real species, and nothing on this figure is estimated.

What is known

27 sourced facts, each taken from a named scientific dataset. How to read these.

Cited from a dataset unless a row is marked otherwise.

Standing in the world

Still living
Extant
Conservation status
Least Concern
Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
2012
Population trend
Stable

The animal itself

Limbs
Four legs
Venomous
No
Fangs
None

Size

Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
123mm4.75 in

max 123 mm SVL (Feldman et al. 2016)

Length snout to vent · adult female mean
70mm2.75 in
Largest female · snout to vent
70mm2.75 in

snout-vent length; the source column mixes this with straight carapace length

Body mass · greatestcomputed
63.56g2.2 oz

computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed

How it lives

Where it lives
Saxicolous

Saxicolous / sleeping on a branch (Trape 2011)

Habitat
Rocky, Savanna
Biome
Tropical & Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas & Shrublands
Region
Afrotropic
Mainland or island
Mainland
Lowest it lives · above sea level
450m
Highest it lives · above sea level
1100m

IUCN (0 to 1100)

Range size
26,714km²

Breeding

Reproduction
Oviparous

Naming and history

Suborder
Sauria
Infraorder
Acrodontia
Subspecies
No
Described by
Chabanaud
Moved to another genus · since it was first described
No
Described in
1918
Type locality
Guinea

Keeping one

19.5 in × 19.5 in × 12 in(49 × 49 × 31 cm)

Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better.

The standard sizes ground-dwelling species at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times snout-vent length.

Lives on rock, so stable hard surfaces and basking ledges suit it.

Mindestanforderungen an die Haltung von Reptilien (Sachverständigengutachten), German Federal Ministry for Nutrition, Agriculture and Forestry, Animal Welfare Division, 10 January 1997. The standard states these floor areas are recommendations rather than binding limits.

From this animal’s own snout-vent length of 4.75 in (123 mm), at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.

No preferred body temperature has been recorded for Insular Agama. Rather than repeat a number from a care sheet, this page leaves it out.

Feeding

8kJ per day

Worked out for an animal of 64 g, the heaviest recorded for Insular Agama — so it is the top of the range, not a figure for a particular animal. Weigh yours and the number will be lower.

An upper estimate, not a feeding target, and not veterinary advice. The equation covers only what an animal burns staying alive, so a growing, gravid or recovering animal needs more — and it was measured on wild animals, which move far more than one in an enclosure. Body condition and a vet who knows the species are what a feeding decision should rest on. Where this comes from.

What nobody knows

These are not gaps in our research. No scientific dataset records them for this species — and saying so is information you cannot get from a reference that simply leaves a field out.

  • Length snout to vent · adult male mean
  • Length snout to vent · adult mean
  • Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
  • Female length · mean, nose to tail
  • Length nose to tail · adult male mean
  • Length nose to tail · adult mean
  • Largest male · snout to vent
  • Largest female · shell length
  • Largest male · shell length
  • Hatchling length · snout to vent
  • Hatchling length · nose to tail
  • Largest juvenile · snout to vent
  • Largest juvenile · shell length
  • Egg length
  • Egg width
  • Body mass · a typical adult
  • Body mass · adult female, mean
  • Body mass at hatching
  • Longest recorded life
  • Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
  • Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
  • Diet
  • Eats arthropods
  • Eats vertebrates
  • Eats plant matter
  • How it hunts
  • Active
  • How the young develop
  • Gestation or incubation
  • Average clutch
  • Smallest clutch recorded
  • Largest clutch recorded
  • Mean clutch · smallest reported
  • Mean clutch · largest reported
  • Clutches in a year
  • Clutches a year · fewest
  • Clutches a year · most
  • First breeds from · youngest recorded
  • First breeds by · oldest recorded
  • Hatchling length · smallest recorded
  • Hatchling length · largest recorded
  • Age at first breeding · female
  • Mature from · youngest recorded
  • Mature by · oldest recorded
  • Size at maturity · smallest recorded
  • Size at maturity · largest recorded
  • Body temp in the wild · lowest mean recorded
  • Body temp in the wild · highest mean recorded
  • Colour on the back
  • Pattern on the back
  • Pupil
  • Sex decided by
  • Red List criteria
  • Active season · shortest recorded
  • Active season · longest recorded
  • Density · lowest recorded
  • Density · highest recorded
  • Home range · largest recorded
  • Active in

Others in Agamidae

Take this data

Everything on this page is available as data under CC BY 4.0 — use it freely, credit it, no permission needed.

This species as JSON · the whole dataset

Cite this page

The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia (2026). Agama insularis. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/agama-insularis

@misc{agama_insularis_2026,
  title  = {Agama insularis},
  author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/agama-insularis}
}

Sources

  1. Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
  2. Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.
  3. Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.