Reptilia · Squamata
Paralaudakia caucasiaEichwald, 1831
Caucasian Agama
Photograph by Kseniia Marianna Prondzynska, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A rock-dwelling, day-active, omnivorous lizard from the Saharo-Sindian region, reaching 174 mm snout to vent.
Once published as Agama caucasica, Laudakia caucasia, Laudakia caucasica — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Agamidae › Paralaudakia
- Grows to
- 174mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Omnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 14years
Longer than 92% 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
44 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
- 2016
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 14years
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 29°C84 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 29°C
Baig et al. 2012, Smirina and Ananjeva 2007: 13, Cicek et al. 2012: 13; Kumas and Ayaz 2014: 13 in nature, Panov and Zykova 2016 (max 14, nature), Ergul et al. 2017 (10, nature)
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 174mm6.75 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 123.8mm4.75 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 123.8mm4.75 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 40.5mm1.5 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 40.5mm1.5 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 186.6g6.6 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 47.7g1.7 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Shai Meiri, unpublished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
- Omnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Saxicolous
- Habitat
- Desert, Forest, Rocky, Shrubland
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Active season · months of the year
- 7–9months
- Region
- Saharo-Sindian
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 4000m
- Range size
- 1,711,148km²
- Density
- 1.3–457per hectare
- Home range · largest recorded
- 210m2
(mainly Herbivorous, occasionally feeding on insects and small lizards, Khan 2006, see also Dunayev and Orlova 2023) / mainly carnivorous, only 8 of 111 individuals had plants in their diet (Waltner 1991, p21&24) / lizards and insects (Das 2002, Arakelyan et al. 2011, Das and Das 2017)/omnivorous (Ataev et al. 1994, Nikolskii 1915), see also Panov and Zykova 2016 (e.g., for feeding on lizards, p79), archnids, insects and plants (Kamali 2020)
e.g., Das and Das 2017, Yousefkhani et al. 2018, Kamali 2020, Dunayev and Orlova 2023, Albarwari 2021
(sometimes arboreal, Ananjeva and Tuniev 1994), saxicolous (Das and Das 2017, Kamali 2020)
sea level to 4000 (Sanchooli et al. 2015), max 4000 (Kamali 2020), max 3370 (Dunayev and Orlova 2023), max 3000 (Albarwari 2021)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Sex decided by
- Temperature
- Average clutch
- 9.45eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 3–14eggs
- Mean clutch
- 7.2–11.7eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 1.5per year
- Clutches a year
- 1–2per year
- First breeds at
- 22–48months
5-14 (Arakelyan et al. 2011, Albarwari 2021), 3-5 (Ataev et al. 1994), but then gives much higher numbers in pp342-343, 4-14 (Szczerbak 2003), Panov and Zykova 2016 (means 7.2-11.7, range 4-14, p180), about 12 (Das and Das 2017), 6-14, mean 9 (Dunayev and Orlova 2023)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Acrodontia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Eichwald
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1831
- Type locality
- Georgia and Azerbaijan
Keeping one
2 ft 3 in × 2 ft 3 in × 17 in(70 × 70 × 44 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 6.75 in (174 mm), at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
Active animals measured in the wild averaged 84 °F (29 °C).
Mean body temperature of active individuals measured in nature. 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.
20kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 187 g, the heaviest recorded for Caucasian 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
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How it hunts
- — 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
- — Red List criteria
- — 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). Paralaudakia caucasia. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/paralaudakia-caucasia
@misc{paralaudakia_caucasia_2026,
title = {Paralaudakia caucasia},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/paralaudakia-caucasia}
}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.