Reptilia · Squamata
Ctenophorus fordiStorr, 1965
Mallee Dragon
Photograph by Rolf Lawrenz, CC BY, via Wikimedia Commons
A ground-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating lizard from the Australo-Pacific region, reaching 58 mm snout to vent.
Also called Mallee Sand-dragon.
Once published as Amphibolurus fordi — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Agamidae › Ctenophorus
- Grows to
- 58.4mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 2years
Longer than only 12% 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
42 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
- 2017
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 2years
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 37.05°C99 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 36.9–37.2°C98–99 °F
Heatwole and Taylor 1987, Swan and Watharow 2005 (18 months), Wilson 2012 (book):2, almost annual, most adults die after mating/laying (Robertson and Coventry 2019), mostly annual, up to 2 (Melville and Wilson 2019)
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 58.4mm2.25 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 48.7mm2 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 51.8mm2 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 24.5mm1 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 24.5mm1 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 6.29g0.22 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 0.59g0.02 oz
Shai Meiri, unpublished
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
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Sit and wait
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Shrubland
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Region
- Australo-Pacific
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 381–482m
- Range size
- 1,230,066km²
- Density
- 10–39per hectare
Arthropods (mainly ants, Pianka 1986, Abensperg-Traun and Steven 1997), see Pianka 2013, almost only ants (Robertson and Coventry 2019, Melville and Wilson 2019), insectivorous (Lazzari et al. 2022)
e.g., Pianka 2013, Mesquita et al. 2016
e.g., Swan et al. 2017, Robertson and Coventry 2019, Swan 2020, Black 1983, Lazzari et al. 2022
e.g., Mesquita et al. 2016, Swan et al. 2017, Robertson and Coventry 2019, Melville and Wilson 2019, Gray et al. 2019, Swan 2020, Black 1983
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Sex decided by
- Genes, ZW/ZZ
- Average clutch
- 2.3eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–5eggs
- Mean clutch
- 2.2–2.4eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 2.5per year
- Clutches a year
- 1–4per year
- First breeds at
- 8–9.6months
2-3 (Swan and Watharow 2005, Brown 2012, Melville and Wilson 2019), Pianka 2013 (2-3 mean 2.3), means 2.26-2.31 (Mesquita et al. 2016), 2-4, usually 2 (Robertson and Coventry 2019)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Acrodontia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Storr
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1965
- Type locality
- Australia
Keeping one
9.25 in × 9.25 in × 5.75 in(23 × 23 × 15 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.
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 2.25 in (58.4 mm), at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
Active animals measured in the wild averaged 99 °F (37.1 °C).
Mean body temperature of active individuals measured in nature. A measurement of the animal, not a setting for a thermostat.
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.
1kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 6 g, the heaviest recorded for Mallee Dragon — 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
- — Body mass · adult female, mean
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — 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
- — Population trend
- — Red List criteria
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest 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). Ctenophorus fordi. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/ctenophorus-fordi
@misc{ctenophorus_fordi_2026,
title = {Ctenophorus fordi},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/ctenophorus-fordi}
}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.