Reptilia · Squamata
Ctenosaura quinquecarinataGray, 1842
Oaxacan Spinytail Iguana
No photograph of this species exists under a license anyone may reuse. It gets the same page regardless.
A day-active, plant-eating lizard from the Neotropic region, reaching 200 mm snout to vent.
Also called Five-keeled Spiny-tailed Iguana.
Once published as Ctenosaura praeocularis, Ctenosaura quinquecarinatus, Ctenosaura quinquecariniata, Enyaliosaurus quinquecarinatus — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Iguanidae › Ctenosaura
- Grows to
- 200mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Herbivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives
- Arboreal, saxicolous
Longer than only 19% 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
34 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
- Data Deficient
- 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
- 200mm7.75 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 129.7mm5 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 127mm5 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 347.3g12.2 oz
max 200 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
- Forest, Shrubland
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Coniferous Forests
- Active season · months of the year
- 12months
- Region
- Neotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1000m
- Range size
- 19,902km²
- Density
- 0.93per hectare
Omnivorous (e.g., McCranie 2018: leaves, fruit and insects), adults predominantly herbivorous (Leenders 2019)
strictly diurnal, McCranie 2018, basking: Leenders 2019
Semi Arboreal / arboreal and saxicolous (Villa 1971) / mainly arboreal (Hasbun and Kohler 2009; Ctenosaura praeocularis; McCranie 2018), in a burrow, basks on trunks and boulders near the burrow entrance
95-1000 (McCranie 2018), near sea level to 250 (Leenders 2019)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 11eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 5–15eggs
- Mean clutch
- 11eggs
- Clutches a year
- 1per year
mean 11 (Ctenosaura praeocularis), 8-13 (McCranie 2018), 5 eggs per year (Zeas and Alvarado 2015)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Pleurodonta
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Gray
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1842
- Type locality
- Mexico
Keeping one
2 ft 7 in × 2 ft 7 in × 2 ft 7 in(80 × 80 × 80 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 7.75 in (200 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 Oaxacan 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.
36kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 347 g, the heaviest recorded for Oaxacan 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 · 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
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How it hunts
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — 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
- — 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 quinquecarinata. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/ctenosaura-quinquecarinata
@misc{ctenosaura_quinquecarinata_2026,
title = {Ctenosaura quinquecarinata},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/ctenosaura-quinquecarinata}
}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.