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Squamata · IguanidaeEntry 5,785 of 21,572
Andros Island Iguana, Cyclura cychlura

Reptilia · Squamata

Cyclura cychluraCuvier, 1829

Andros Island Iguana

Photograph placed in the public domain, CC0, via iNaturalist

A ground-dwelling, day-active, plant-eating lizard from the Neotropic region, reaching 655 mm snout to vent.

Also called Allen's Island Iguana, Northern Bahamian Rock Iguana.

Once published as Cyclura figginsi — those names reach this page.

ReptiliaSquamataIguanidaeCyclura

Grows to
655mm
greatest recorded
Eats
Herbivorous
Active
Diurnal
Lives up to
40years
Body length across Iguanidae

Longer than 95% of all iguanas anyone has measured.

95% of 43 species are smaller5% larger
129 mmthe whole family, smallest to largest750 mm

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
Vulnerable
Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
2004
Population trend
Decreasing
Red List criteria
A2bce; B1ab(i,ii,iii,iv,v)

The animal itself

Limbs
Four legs
Venomous
No
Fangs
None
Longest recorded life
40years

De Magalhaes & Costa 2009, Slavens and Slavens 1999: 5 and 7 months, 23 and 6 months for figginsi, Iverson et al. 2004: at least 40, Henderson & Powell 2009: 36.7

Size

Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
655mm2 ft 2 in

max 655 mm SVL (Feldman et al. 2016)

Length snout to vent · adult female mean
336mm13 in
Largest female · snout to vent
336mm13 in

snout-vent length; the source column mixes this with straight carapace length

Hatchling length · snout to vent
90mm3.5 in
Largest juvenile · snout to vent
90mm3.5 in
Body mass · greatestcomputed
11,800g26 lb

computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed

Body mass · a typical adult
6754.6g15 lb

AnAge rates this record "acceptable"

Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
387.7g13.7 oz
Body mass at hatchingmeasured
36.5g1.3 oz

How it lives

Diet
Herbivorous

Herbivorous: fruit

How it hunts
Sit and wait

Banfi et al. 2023

Active
Diurnal
Where it lives
Terrestrial
Habitat
Forest
Biome
Tropical & Subtropical Coniferous Forests
Region
Neotropic
Mainland or island
Found only on islands
Highest it lives · above sea level
10m
Range size
155km²
Density
0.5–600per hectare
Home range · largest recorded
305,800m2

Breeding

Reproduction
Oviparous
Average clutch
6.4eggs
Eggs or young per clutch
1–19eggs

1-10, mean 4.6, across population means of 3-8.8 (Iverson et al. 2004)

Mean clutch
3–9.8eggs
Clutches in a year
0.67per year
Clutches a year
0.33–1per year
First breeds at
144months
Age at first breeding · female
3652days

Naming and history

Suborder
Sauria
Infraorder
Pleurodonta
Subspecies
Cyclura cychlura figginsi BARBOUR 1923 Cyclura cychlura cychlura (CUVIER 1829) Cyclura cychlura inornata BARBOUR & NOBLE 1916
Described by
Cuvier
Moved to another genus · since it was first described
Yes
Described in
1829
Type locality
Bahamas

Keeping one

Andros Island Iguana is assessed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. Species at risk in the wild are often covered by CITES and by national law, which decide what may be bought, sold, moved across a border or kept at all — and captive-bred and wild-caught animals are usually treated differently. Check the rules where you are before acquiring one. Nothing below is a judgement about keeping this species; it is what a published welfare standard says about space, and what the animal itself was measured doing.

8 ft 7 in × 8 ft 7 in × 5 ft 4 in(262 × 262 × 164 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 ft 2 in (655 mm), at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.

No preferred body temperature has been recorded for Andros Island 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.

817kJ per day

Worked out for an animal of 11,800 g, the heaviest recorded for Andros Island 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
  • Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
  • Eats arthropods
  • Eats vertebrates
  • Eats plant matter
  • How the young develop
  • Gestation or incubation
  • Hatchling length · smallest recorded
  • Hatchling length · largest recorded
  • 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
  • Active season · shortest recorded
  • Active season · longest 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). Cyclura cychlura. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/cyclura-cychlura

@misc{cyclura_cychlura_2026,
  title  = {Cyclura cychlura},
  author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/cyclura-cychlura}
}

Sources

  1. Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
  2. AnAge, Human Ageing Genomic Resources (de Magalhães et al.), used under CC BY 3.0.
  3. Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.
  4. Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.