Reptilia · Squamata
Sitana ponticerianaCuvier, 1829
Pondichéry Fan Throated Lizard
Photograph by C L Dheeraj, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, day-active, omnivorous lizard from the Oriental region, reaching 81 mm snout to vent.
Also called Bahir’s Fan- throated Lizard.
Reptilia › Squamata › Agamidae › Sitana
- Grows to
- 81mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Omnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 6years
Longer than only 38% 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
- 2019
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 6years
- Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradientmeasured
- 35.5°C
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 34.3–34.5°C94–94 °F
Pal et al. 2009 (6 years), Kastle 1998: 3.5% survived one year, 1 year (Mahana and Choudhury 20230
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 81mm3.25 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 52mm2 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 45.3mm1.75 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 14.98mm0.6 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 17.37g0.61 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 4.2g0.15 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 0.17g0.01 oz
max 81 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
- How it hunts
- Sit and wait
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest, Rocky, Shrubland
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Dry Broadleaf Forests
- Active season · months of the year
- 12months
- Region
- Oriental
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 600m
- Range size
- 173,089km²
- Density
- 25per hectare
- Home range · largest recorded
- 100m2
insects (mostly termites, Rao 1998, Manthey and Schuster 1996, and ants, Somaweera and Somaweera 2009, Manthey 2010) / omnivorous: arthropods, gastropods and plants ("Fan-throated Lizards are primarily insectivorous, although plant material is a seasonally important dietary component", Pal et al. 2007), insects (Das and Das 2017)
Mesquita et al. 2016, Kastle 1998
e.g., Das and Das 2017, Kastle 1998
Terrestrial, also known to climb (Das and de Silva 2011, Srinivasulu et al. 2014), terrestrial and arboreal (Pal et al. 2010) / terrestrial (Pal et al. 2011, Mesquita et al. 2016, Das and Das 2017)
0-600 (Srinivasulu et al. 2014), 6-520 (Deepak et al. 2016)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 14.3eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 4–23eggs
- Mean clutch
- 11.2–17.4eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 2.5per year
- Clutches a year
- 2–3per year
- First breeds at
- 11months
8-13, mean 11.2 in text, but 9-14 oviductal eggs in table 1, mean 12.14 (Subba Rao and Rajabai 1972, Kastle 1998), 6-23, mean 17.39 (Pal et al. 2011), mean 11.2 (e.g., Mesquita et al. 2016), 4 (Deepak et al. 2016, n=1), 6-8 (Das and Das 2017), 7-38 (Mahana and Choudhury 2023, doubtful)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Acrodontia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Cuvier
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1829
- Type locality
- India
Keeping one
13 in × 13 in × 8 in(32 × 32 × 20 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 3.25 in (81 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 96 °F (35.5 °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.
2kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 17 g, the heaviest recorded for Pondichéry Fan Throated 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 · snout to vent
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- — 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
- — 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). Sitana ponticeriana. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/sitana-ponticeriana
@misc{sitana_ponticeriana_2026,
title = {Sitana ponticeriana},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/sitana-ponticeriana}
}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.