Reptilia · Squamata
Cyclura nubilaGray, 1831
Cuban Iguana
Photograph by marique, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A day-active, plant-eating lizard from the Neotropic region, reaching 750 mm snout to vent.
Also called Cayman Island Ground Iguana, Cayman Islands Ground Iguana, Clouded Rock Iguana.
Once published as Cyclura macleayi — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Iguanidae › Cyclura
- Grows to
- 750mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Herbivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 54years
Longer than 98% 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
48 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
- 1996
- Red List criteria
- A1cde+2ce
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 54years
- Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradientmeasured
- 36.1°C
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 38.6°C101 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 38.6°C
De Magalhaes & Costa 2009, Slavens and Slavens 1999: 47.6; Henderson & Powell 2009 (lewisi): 54, estimated 69
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 750mm2 ft 6 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 352.5mm14 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 352.5mm14 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 102.5mm4 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 102.5mm4 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 17,647g39 lb
- Body mass · a typical adult
- 4100g9 lb
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 41.2g1.5 oz
max 750 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, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest, Savanna, Shrubland
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Dry Broadleaf Forests
- Region
- Neotropic
- Mainland or island
- Found only on islands
- Elevation · above sea level
- 20–30m
- Range size
- 86,523km²
- Density
- 0.67–7.8per hectare
- Home range · largest recorded
- 135,670m2
Herbivorous, occasionally invertebrates (Schettino 1999, Henderson and Powell 2009)
Banfi et al. 2023
Terrestrial and Arboreal (see Sources (general) column)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Sex decided by
- Genes, XX/XY
- Gestation or incubation
- 40days
- Average clutch
- 10.3eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 2–30eggs
- Mean clutch
- 5.6–15eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 0.75per year
- Clutches a year
- 0.5–1per year
- First breeds at
- 24–36months
- Age at first breeding · female
- 2009days
means 8.6-15 but 5.6 for an introduced population (Iverson et al. 2004)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Pleurodonta
- Subspecies
- Cyclura nubila caymanensis BARBOUR & NOBLE 1916 Cyclura nubila nubila (GRAY 1831)
- Described by
- Gray
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1831
- Type locality
- Cuba
Keeping one
Cuban 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.
9 ft 10 in × 9 ft 10 in × 9 ft 10 in(300 × 300 × 300 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.
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 6 in (750 mm), at 4 × 4 × 4 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
In a laboratory thermal gradient this species settled at 97 °F (36.1 °C).
Preferred body temperature, recorded in a laboratory gradient where the animal could choose freely. 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.
1168kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 17,647 g, the heaviest recorded for Cuban 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 · adult female, mean
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How the young develop
- — 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
- — Colour on the back
- — Pattern on the back
- — Pupil
- — Population trend
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — Active in
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 nubila. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/cyclura-nubila
@misc{cyclura_nubila_2026,
title = {Cyclura nubila},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/cyclura-nubila}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- AnAge, Human Ageing Genomic Resources (de Magalhães et al.), used under CC BY 3.0.
- 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.