Reptilia · Squamata
Laudakia stellioLinnaeus, 1758
Roughtail Rock Agama
Photograph by Kseniia Marianna Prondzynska, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A rock-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating lizard from the Saharo-Sindian region, reaching 133 mm snout to vent.
Once published as Agama stellio — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Agamidae › Laudakia
- Grows to
- 133.2mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 10years
Longer than 76% of all agamids 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 32 to 418 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
41 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
- 2012
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 10years
- Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradientmeasured
- 33.2–38.1°C92–101 °F
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 34°C93 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 32.3–36°C90–97 °F
Carey and Judge 2000, De Magalhaes & Costa 2009, Slavens and Slavens 1999: 6; Snider and Bowler 1992: 2.33; Kumas and Ayaz 2014: 7 in nature; Ergul et al. 2014 (also Panov and Zykova 2016): to 10 in nature, Foufopoulos and Ives 1999: 6 years, Gidis and Baskale 2021: 9 years
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 133.2mm5.25 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 116.8mm4.5 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 105.8mm4.25 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 31.65mm1.25 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 31mm1.25 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 81.35g2.9 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 21.55g0.76 oz
Shai Meiri, unpublished
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
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Sit and wait
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Saxicolous
- Biome
- Mediterranean
- Region
- Saharo-Sindian
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 3000m
- Range size
- 482,817km²
- Home range · largest recorded
- 250m2
Omnivorous, mainly arthropods, regularly plants, rarely smaller lizards (Valakos et al. 2008, arthropods and plants & opportunistic, but 99% insects (Dusen and Oz 2001), see also Karameta et al. 2015,
McElroy et al. 2008, Al-Sheikhly and Mallon 2013
Shai Meiri pers. obs.
max 2000 (Speybroeck et al. 2016),
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Sex decided by
- Temperature
- Average clutch
- 11.5eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 5–14eggs
- Clutches a year
- 1–2per year
- First breeds at
- 24–36months
10 (Van Wilgen and Richardson 2012), 6-10 (Speybroeck et al. 2016), 5-14 (Kwet 2015),
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Acrodontia
- Subspecies
- Laudakia stellio daani (BEUTLER & FRÖR 1980) Laudakia stellio stellio (LINNAEUS 1758)
- Described by
- Linnaeus
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1758
- Type locality
- Greece
Keeping one
21 in × 21 in × 13 in(53 × 53 × 33 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.
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 5.25 in (133.2 mm), at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
In a laboratory thermal gradient this species settled at 92–101 °F (33.2–38.1 °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
A prey item should be no wider than the space between the animal's eyes.
Widely used across reptile husbandry references. The stated reason is that the gap approximates the width of the throat, so wider prey is associated with impaction. This is established practice, not a measurement.
10kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 81 g, the heaviest recorded for Roughtail Rock Agama — 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
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Mean clutch · smallest reported
- — Mean clutch · largest reported
- — Clutches in a year
- — 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
- — Red List criteria
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Habitat
- — Active in
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
Others in Agamidae
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). Laudakia stellio. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/laudakia-stellio
@misc{laudakia_stellio_2026,
title = {Laudakia stellio},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/laudakia-stellio}
}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.