Reptilia · Squamata
Ctenosaura macrolophaSmith, 1972
Cape Spinytail Iguana
Photograph by Gjon Hazard, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A day-active, plant-eating lizard from the Nearctic region, reaching 212 mm snout to vent.
Also called Sonoran Spiny- tailed Iguana.
Reptilia › Squamata › Iguanidae › Ctenosaura
- Grows to
- 212mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Herbivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives
- Arboreal, saxicolous
Longer than only 21% of all iguanas 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 129 to 750 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
35 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
- 2020
- Population trend
- Decreasing
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 212mm8.25 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 152.5mm6 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 152.5mm6 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 60mm2.25 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 55mm2.25 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 412.9g14.6 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 159.2g5.6 oz
max 212 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
- Herbivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Arboreal, saxicolous
- Habitat
- Rocky, Shrubland
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Dry Broadleaf Forests
- Active season · months of the year
- 12months
- Region
- Nearctic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 860m
- Range size
- 42,786km²
(entirely vegeterian, mostly leaves; Lemos-Espinal et al. 2013), mostly vegetarian but occasionally takes vertebrates and invertebrates and carrion (Rorabaugh and Lemos-Espinal 2016, Heimes 2022)
e.g., Rorabaugh and Lemos-Espinal 2016
Saxicolous (Lemos-Espinal et al. 2013), arboreal and saxicolous (Heimes 2022)
below 600 (Lemos-Espinal et al. 2013), 0-854 (Rorabaugh and Lemos-Espinal 2016), 0-860 (Heimes 2022)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 10.5eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 9–12eggs
- Clutches a year
- 1per year
12 (Goldberg 2009), 9-10 (Sheetz et al. 2007, also cited in Langner et al. 2022)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Pleurodonta
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Smith
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1972
- Type locality
- Mexico
Keeping one
2 ft 9 in × 2 ft 9 in × 2 ft 9 in(85 × 85 × 85 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 8.25 in (212 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 Cape Spinytail Iguana. Rather than repeat a number from a care sheet, this page leaves it out.
Feeding
Prey size does not apply. A herbivore's diet is judged on fibre, on the ratio of calcium to phosphorus, and on avoiding plants high in oxalates.
The animal does not take prey items. This is established practice, not a measurement.
41kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 413 g, the heaviest recorded for Cape Spinytail Iguana — 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 at hatching
- — Longest recorded life
- — 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
- — Mean clutch · smallest reported
- — Mean clutch · largest reported
- — Clutches in a year
- — 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
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
Others in Iguanidae
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). Ctenosaura macrolopha. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/ctenosaura-macrolopha
@misc{ctenosaura_macrolopha_2026,
title = {Ctenosaura macrolopha},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/ctenosaura-macrolopha}
}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.