Reptilia · Squamata
Phrynocephalus helioscopusPallas, 1771
Sunwatcher Toadhead Agama
Photograph by Maxim Shashkov, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating lizard from the Saharo-Sindian region, reaching 70 mm snout to vent.
Reptilia › Squamata › Agamidae › Phrynocephalus
- Grows to
- 70mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 3years
Longer than only 25% 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
- 2018
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 3years
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 37.05°C99 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 33.1–41°C92–106 °F
Szczerbak 2003 (3 in nature), 2.5 (Hallmann and Griebeler 2015, Smirina and Ananjeva 2017)
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 70mm2.75 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 48.7mm2 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 48.3mm2 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 24.35mm1 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 24.4mm1 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 11.04g0.39 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 0.95g0.03 oz
e.g., Buehler et al. 2021
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
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Desert, Shrubland
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Active season · months of the year
- 7–9months
- Region
- Saharo-Sindian
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 40–1400m
- Range size
- 2,585,964km²
- Density
- 0.2–45per hectare
insects (mainly ants, Rogner 1997a), insects (Nikolskii 1915), Archnids and insects (Kamali 2020), arthropods (Dunayev and Orlova 2023)
Shenbrot et al. 1991
e.g., Martin et al. 2017, Liang et al. 2018, Kamali 2020, Dunayev and Orlova 2023
e.g., Martin et al. 2017
max 1000 (Hallmann and Griebeler 2015), 40-900 (Showler 2018)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 3.7eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 2–10eggs
- Mean clutch
- 2.9–4.5eggs
- Clutches a year
- 1–3per year
- First breeds at
- 12months
2-7 (Clemann et al. 2008, Szczerbak 2003), 4.5 (Hallmann and Griebeler 2015), 2-6, means 2.9-3.8 (Liang et al. 2018), 3-5 (Buehler et al. 2021), 2-8 (Dunayev and Orlova 2023)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Acrodontia
- Subspecies
- Phrynocephalus helioscopus helioscopus PALLAS 1773 Phrynocephalus helioscopus cameranoi BEDRIAGA 1907 Phrynocephalus helioscopus meridionalis DUNAYEV, SOLOVYEVA & POYARKOV 2012 Phrynocephalus helioscopus saidalievi SATTOROV 1981 Phrynocephalus helioscopus sergeevi DUNAYEV, SOLOVYEVA & POYARKOV 2012 Phrynocephalus helioscopus turcomanus DUNAYEV, SOLOVYEVA & POYARKOV 2012 Phrynocephalus helioscopus varius EICHWALD 1831
- Described by
- Pallas
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1771
- Type locality
- Tajikistan
Keeping one
11 in × 11 in × 7 in(28 × 28 × 18 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 2.75 in (70 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 99 °F (37.1 °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.
2kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 11 g, the heaviest recorded for Sunwatcher 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
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — 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
- — Sex decided by
- — Population trend
- — 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 helioscopus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/phrynocephalus-helioscopus
@misc{phrynocephalus_helioscopus_2026,
title = {Phrynocephalus helioscopus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/phrynocephalus-helioscopus}
}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.