Reptilia · Squamata
Phrynocephalus guttatusGmelin, 1789
Spotted Toadhead Agama
Photograph by lugachev_vitaly, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, day-active, omnivorous lizard from the Palearctic region, reaching 65 mm snout to vent.
Also called Central Asian Toadhead Agama, Spotted toad-headed agama.
Once published as Phrynocephalus acutirostris, Phrynocephalus alpherakii, Phrynocephalus grumgrzimailoi, Phrynocephalus haeckeli, Phrynocephalus melanurus, Phrynocephalus ocellatus — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Agamidae › Phrynocephalus
- Grows to
- 65mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Omnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 5years
Longer than only 19% 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
- 2016
- Population trend
- Decreasing
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 5years
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 39.1°C
Rogovin & Semenov 2002: 4 years, Ananjeva et al. 2003 gives 5 for melanurus, Smirina and Ananjeva 2017 (2)
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 65mm2.5 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 49.5mm2 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 49.5mm2 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 22.5mm0.9 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 24.5mm1 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 8.77g0.31 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 0.65g0.02 oz
max 65 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
How it lives
- Diet
- Omnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Desert
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Active season · months of the year
- 6–8months
- Region
- Palearctic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 60–120m
- Range size
- 2,125,782km²
- Density
- 0.75–38.5per hectare
insects, adults Omnivorous (Manthey and Schuster 1996), insects, sometimes spiders and plants (Dunayev and Orlova 2023)
e.g., Dunayev and Orlova 2023
60-120 (Showler 2018)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 3.23eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–5eggs
- Mean clutch
- 3.23eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 2per year
- Clutches a year
- 1–3per year
- First breeds at
- 9–22months
also Phrynocephalus grumgrzimailoi, Wang et al. 2013
Rogovin and Semenov 2004 report means of offsprings per female between 2.9 and 5.6 - not sure if this is a single clutch or yearly number, 1-5 mean 3.23 (Liu et al. 2012, Phrynocephalus grumgrzimailoi), 2-3 (Szczerbak 2003, Dunayev and Orlova 2023), 2-4 (for P. ocellatus, Szczerbak 2003)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Acrodontia
- Subspecies
- Phrynocephalus guttatus alpherakii BEDRIAGA 1906 Phrynocephalus guttatus guttatus (GMELIN 1789) Phrynocephalus guttatus melanurus EICHWALD 1831 Phrynocephalus guttatus moltschanowi NIKOLSKY 1913 Phrynocephalus guttatus salsatus GORELOV, DUNAYEV & KOTENKO in GOLUBEV et al. 1995
- Described by
- Gmelin
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1789
- Type locality
- Kazakhstan
Keeping one
10 in × 10 in × 6.5 in(26 × 26 × 16 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 2.5 in (65 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 Spotted Toadhead Agama. Rather than repeat a number from a care sheet, this page leaves it out.
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.
1kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 9 g, the heaviest recorded for Spotted Toadhead 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 · adult female, mean
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- — 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
- — Sex decided by
- — Red List criteria
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
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). Phrynocephalus guttatus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/phrynocephalus-guttatus
@misc{phrynocephalus_guttatus_2026,
title = {Phrynocephalus guttatus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/phrynocephalus-guttatus}
}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.