Reptilia · Squamata
Agama lionotusBoulenger, 1896
Kenyan Rock Agama
Photograph by Ewout Knoester, CC BY-SA, via iNaturalist
A day-active, omnivorous lizard from the Afrotropic region, reaching 145 mm snout to vent.
Reptilia › Squamata › Agamidae › Agama
- Grows to
- 145mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Omnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 4years
Longer than 83% of all agamids anyone has measured.
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
37 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
- 2014
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 4years
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 33.8°C
TAUM museum records: 4
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 145mm5.75 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 95.9mm3.75 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 95.9mm3.75 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 28.5mm1 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 28.5mm1 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 105.9g3.7 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 22.19g0.78 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 0.6g0.02 oz
max 145 mm SVL (Feldman et al. 2016)
snout-vent length; the source column mixes this with straight carapace length
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Omnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Arboreal, saxicolous
- Habitat
- Rocky, Savanna, Shrubland
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas & Shrublands
- Region
- Afrotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 2200m
- Range size
- 1,013,804km²
Arthropods (mostly ants, Loveridge 1936), insects (Branch 2014), insects and other arthropods and also plant material, including grass, flowers and fruit (Kenya Reptile Atlas (http://kenyareptileatlas.com/), insects and sometimes plants and small lizards (Spawls et al. 2018, Spawls et al. 2023 - who write the same for Agama without the lizards)
(e.g., Branch 2014, Spawls et al. 2018, Spawls et al. 2023 - same for Agama dodomae, Malonza and Bwong 2023), crepuscular: between 18:00 and 21:00 (Kirchhof et al. 2023)
Saxicolous and Arboreal (e.g., Branch 2014, Spawls et al. 2018, Spawls et al. 2023, also for Agama dodomae), saxicolous (Malonza and Bwong 2023), " In the absence of rocks, this species was entirely arboreal, living on Vachellia sp. trees… in the rock-dominated petrifed forest site (about 5 km from Karsa Gate, the southern entry point of SNP) was this species rupicolous" (Kirchhof et al. 2023)
0-2200 (Kenya Reptile Atlas (http://kenyareptileatlas.com/, Spawls et al. 2018, Malonza and Bwong 2023), sea level to about 1500 (Spawls et al. 2023)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 8.88eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 5–12eggs
- Mean clutch
- 7.5–10.3eggs
7-8 (Loveridge 1920), up to 10 (Branch 2014), 5-9 (Kenya Reptile Atlas (http://kenyareptileatlas.com/), 5-10 (Spawls et al. 2018, who says 8 for Agama dodomae, Spawls et al. 2023)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Acrodontia
- Subspecies
- Agama lionotus elgonis LÖNNBERG 1922 Agama lionotus lionotus BOULENGER 1896
- Described by
- Boulenger
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1896
- Type locality
- Tanzania
Keeping one
23 in × 23 in × 23 in(58 × 58 × 58 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better.
The standard sizes ground species at 4 × 4 × 2.5 and climbing species at 4 × 2.5 × 4 times snout-vent length.
Recorded both on the ground and climbing, so this is the larger of the two rules in every dimension.
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 5.75 in (145 mm), at 4 × 4 × 4 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
No preferred body temperature has been recorded for Kenyan Rock Agama. Rather than repeat a number from a care sheet, this page leaves it out.
Feeding
A prey item should be no wider than the space between the animal's eyes.
Widely used across reptile husbandry references. The stated reason is that the gap approximates the width of the throat, so wider prey is associated with impaction. This is established practice, not a measurement.
12kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 106 g, the heaviest recorded for Kenyan Rock 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 · nose to tail
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How it hunts
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — 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
- — 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
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
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 lionotus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/agama-lionotus
@misc{agama_lionotus_2026,
title = {Agama lionotus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/agama-lionotus}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.
- Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.