Reptilia · Squamata
Ctenosaura similisGray, 1831
Black Iguana
Photograph by Sam Eberhard, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A day-active, plant-eating lizard from the Neotropic region, reaching 490 mm snout to vent.
Also called Common Spiny-tailed Iguana.
Reptilia › Squamata › Iguanidae › Ctenosaura
- Grows to
- 490mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Herbivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 22.4years
Longer than 72% 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
45 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
- 2010
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 22.4years
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 36.5°C98 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 36.5°C
Carey and Judge 2000, De Magalhaes & Costa 2009, Slavens and Slavens 1999
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 490mm19.5 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 305mm12 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 305mm12 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 53.5mm2 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 53.5mm2 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 4980.4g11 lb
- Body mass · a typical adult
- 1034g2.3 lb
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 4245g9.4 lb
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 4.25g0.15 oz
max 490 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
AnAge rates this record "acceptable"
How it lives
- Diet
- Herbivorous
- How it hunts
- Sit and wait
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Arboreal, saxicolous, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest, Grassland, Savanna, Shrubland
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Active season · months of the year
- 12months
- Region
- Neotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1320m
- Range size
- 893,357km²
- Density
- 3.1–5.1per hectare
Omnivorous Adults, juveniles eat insects (e.g., Pianka and Vitt 2003), primarily herbivorous, also take mammals, frogs, lizards, eggs, birds and arthropods (Fitch and Hackforth-Jones 1983), mainly herbivorous, also invertebrates and vertebrates (Fitch and Henderson 1978), "leaves, flowers, field crops, fruits, small rodents, lizards, eggs of lizards and birds, frogs, insects, and other invertebrates. The diet changes from largely animal food for young ctenosaurs to largely plant food for adults." (Henderson 2010), mostly plants (McCranie 2018), a smaller Ctenosaura (C. bakeri; Maryon et al. 2020), see also Leenders 2019, juveniles primarily feed on insects, increasingly herbivorous as adults (Heimes 2022)
e.g., Mesquita et al. 2016
e.g., pers obs., Henderson 2010, Heimes 2022
Terrestrial and Arboreal (e.g., McCranie and Gutsche 2016 and pers. obs.)/ Saxicolous (Mesquita et al. 2016)/mostly arboreal (Leenders 2019), terrestrial and saxicolous, occasionally in trees (Heimes 2022), I've seen them on the ground and on rocks, as well as ~0.5m high on a horisontal branch,
0-1300 (McCranie 2018, Leenders 2019, I saw them at sea level), max 1000 (Heimes 2022)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 32.7eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 12–88eggs
- Mean clutch
- 22–43.4eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 1per year
- Clutches a year
- 1per year
- First breeds at
- 21–33months
15-30 (Ramirez Bautista and Arizmendi 2004), mean 43.4 (e.g., Mesquita et al. 2016), about 40 (Henderson 2010), 12-88 (McCranie 2018, Leenders 2019, Heimes 2022, Langner et al. 2022,)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Pleurodonta
- Subspecies
- Ctenosaura similis similis (GRAY 1831) Ctenosaura similis multipunctata BARBOUR & SHREVE 1934
- Described by
- Gray
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1831
- Type locality
- Honduras
Keeping one
6 ft 5 in × 6 ft 5 in × 6 ft 5 in(196 × 196 × 196 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 19.5 in (490 mm), at 4 × 4 × 4 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
Active animals measured in the wild averaged 98 °F (36.5 °C).
Mean body temperature of active individuals measured in nature. A measurement of the animal, not a setting for a thermostat.
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.
379kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 4,980 g, the heaviest recorded for Black 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
- — 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
- — 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 similis. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/ctenosaura-similis
@misc{ctenosaura_similis_2026,
title = {Ctenosaura similis},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/ctenosaura-similis}
}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.
- AnAge, Human Ageing Genomic Resources (de Magalhães et al.), used under CC BY 3.0.