Reptilia · Squamata
Phrynocephalus theobaldiBlyth, 1863
Snow Lizard
Photograph by chintan sheth, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating lizard from the Palearctic region, reaching 63 mm snout to vent.
Also called Alticola: Montane Toad-headed Agama, Lidskii: Tibetan Toadhead Agama, Theobald's Toad-headed Agama.
Once published as Phrynocephalus zetangensis — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Agamidae › Phrynocephalus
- Grows to
- 63.4mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 8years
Longer than only 17% 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
43 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
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 8years
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 32°C90 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 32°C
Schleich and Kastle 2002
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 63.4mm2.5 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 51.8mm2 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 51.8mm2 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 24.28mm1 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 25.3mm1 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 8.12g0.29 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 0.9g0.03 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Shai Meiri, unpublished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
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Desert, Grassland, Shrubland
- Biome
- Montane Grasslands & Savannas
- Active season · months of the year
- 8months
- Region
- Palearctic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 2800–5200m
- Range size
- 1,631,044km²
- Density
- 18per hectare
Omnivorous: mainly insects also vegetable matter (Tikader and Sharma 1992) / arthropods (Das 2002, Kastle et al. 2013)
Sit and Wait
e.g., Nanhoe and Ouboter 1987, Kastle et al. 2013
2890-5200 (Kastle et al. 2013), 4500-5000 (Flaschendrager and Hoffmann 2018), 3600-5100 (Cerdena et al. 2021), 3085-5100 (Patel et al. 2023)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Average clutch
- 2.2eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–5eggs
- Mean clutch
- 2–2.4eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 1per year
- Clutches a year
- 1per year
- First breeds at
- 8–24months
either (Das 2002) / Viviparous (Schleich and Kastle 2002, Kastle et al. 2013, Macey et al. 2018)
1-4, mean 2.02-2.4 (Jin et al. 2013), 1-2 (Kastle et al. 2013), also cited in Patel et al. 2020 who report a litter of 5 (n=1)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Acrodontia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Blyth
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1863
- Type locality
- India
Keeping one
10 in × 10 in × 6.25 in(25 × 25 × 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 (63.4 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 90 °F (32 °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.
1kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 8 g, the heaviest recorded for Snow Lizard — 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
- — 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 theobaldi. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/phrynocephalus-theobaldi
@misc{phrynocephalus_theobaldi_2026,
title = {Phrynocephalus theobaldi},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/phrynocephalus-theobaldi}
}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.