Reptilia · Squamata
Agama picticaudaPeters, 1877
Red-headed agama
Photograph placed in the public domain, CC0, via iNaturalist
A day-active, omnivorous lizard from the Afrotropic region, reaching 157 mm snout to vent.
Also called African Redhead Agama, Peter's Rock Agama, Peters's Rock Agama.
Reptilia › Squamata › Agamidae › Agama
- Grows to
- 157mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Omnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 20years
Longer than 89% 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
36 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
- 2019
- Population trend
- Increasing
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 20years
~20 (Steele 2017), in TAUM an animal collected in 30-04-1973 died 2. november 1980
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 157mm6.25 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 119mm4.75 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 34.79mm1.25 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 135.6g4.8 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 1.59g0.06 oz
Shai Meiri, unpublished
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Omnivorous
- How it hunts
- Sit and wait
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Arboreal, saxicolous
- Habitat
- Savanna
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas & Shrublands
- Region
- Afrotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1500m
- Range size
- 7,457,286km²
Ofori et al. 2018: "this species is a generalist insectivore, preying mainly on spiders, grasshoppers, beetles, ants and termites, butterflies and moths, and flies (Harris, 1964; Anibaldi et al., 1998; Akani et al., 2013). Secondarily, they also consume other types of invertebrates, small vertebrates, and even plant materials (Chapman and Chapman, 1964; Yeboah, 1982). Studies have also shown that animals in urban areas opportunistically consume anthropogenic food items due to their ease of access, relative abundance, high caloric energy levels, and ease of digestion (Murray et al., 2015; Reher et al., 2016; Cronk and Pillay, 2018).", omnivorous (Pauwels et al. 2017), mostly ants (Spawls et al. 2023)
Krysko et al. 2019
e.g., Spawls et al. 2023
Saxicolous and Arboreal (e.g., Spawls et al. 2023)
98-108 (Ofori et al. 2018a,b), beach (Pauwels et al. 2017), 0-1500 (Spawls et al. 2023)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Sex decided by
- Temperature
- Average clutch
- 6eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 3–9eggs
- Clutches a year
- 2–3per year
- First breeds at
- 14–24months
3-9 (Steele 2017, Steele and Warner 2020), 7 and 4 ectopic (Dzikowski et al. 2019; n=1), 3-10 (Spawls et al. 2023), 5-18 mean 9 in Florida (Krysko et al. 2019)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Acrodontia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Peters
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1877
- Type locality
- Ghana and Cameroon
Keeping one
2 ft 1 in × 2 ft 1 in × 2 ft 1 in(63 × 63 × 63 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 6.25 in (157 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 Red-headed 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.
15kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 136 g, the heaviest recorded for Red-headed 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 female · snout to vent
- — Largest male · snout to vent
- — Largest female · shell length
- — Largest male · shell length
- — 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
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Mean clutch · smallest reported
- — Mean clutch · largest reported
- — Clutches in a year
- — 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
- — 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 picticauda. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/agama-picticauda
@misc{agama_picticauda_2026,
title = {Agama picticauda},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/agama-picticauda}
}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.