Reptilia · Squamata
Uromastyx acanthinuraBell, 1825
North-African Mastigure
Photograph by B. P. White, CC BY-SA, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, day-active, plant-eating lizard from the Saharo-Sindian region, reaching 400 mm snout to vent.
Also called North African Spiny-tailed Lizard.
Once published as Uromastix acanthinurus — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Agamidae › Uromastyx
- Grows to
- 400mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Herbivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 26years
Longer than 100% 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
45 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
- Near Threatened
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2019
- Population trend
- Decreasing
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 26years
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 38°C100 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 38°C
Carey and Judge 2000, De Magalhaes & Costa 2009, Bringsoe 1998: 22, Wilms 2005: 11 years, 5 months; 13.5, 22, and 22 years as adult, so given it takes 4 years to mature I write 26; Slavens and Slavens 1999: 11 years, 5 months, Petzold 2008: 13.5, Moldowan et al. 2022 (23)
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 400mm15.5 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 195mm7.75 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 215mm8.5 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 50mm2 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 50mm2 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 2474g5.5 lb
- Body mass · a typical adult
- 525g1.2 lb
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 374.8g13.2 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 6.5g0.23 oz
max 400 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
AnAge rates this record "acceptable"
How it lives
- Diet
- Herbivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Desert, Rocky, Shrubland
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Region
- Saharo-Sindian
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 1800m
- Range size
- 1,472,903km²
- Density
- 0.01–20per hectare
- Home range · largest recorded
- 45,000m2
(about 5% insects) / adults herbivorous and juveniles insectivorous (Schleich et al. 1996), plants and occasionally insects (Trape et al. 2012), omnivorous, mostly herbivorous (Wilms 2005), see also Bendami et al. 2018; "non-vegetable material accounted for 15%, represented mainly by coleopterans and lepidopterans." (Kechnebbou et al. 2019 - even outlining whih plants)
e.g., Boucherit 2021
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 13eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 5–28eggs
- Mean clutch
- 13eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 1.38per year
- Clutches a year
- 0.75–2per year
- First breeds at
- 48–60months
- Age at first breeding · female
- 1461days
6-28, usually 6-18 (Wilms 2005)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Acrodontia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Bell
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1825
- Type locality
- Algeria
Keeping one
5 ft 3 in × 5 ft 3 in × 3 ft 3 in(160 × 160 × 100 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 15.5 in (400 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 100 °F (38 °C).
Mean body temperature of active individuals measured in nature. A measurement of the animal, not a setting for a thermostat.
Feeding
Prey size does not apply. A herbivore's diet is judged on fibre, on the ratio of calcium to phosphorus, and on avoiding plants high in oxalates.
The animal does not take prey items. This is established practice, not a measurement.
204kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 2,474 g, the heaviest recorded for North-African Mastigure — 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
- — 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
- — 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 season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest 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). Uromastyx acanthinura. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/uromastyx-acanthinura
@misc{uromastyx_acanthinura_2026,
title = {Uromastyx acanthinura},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/uromastyx-acanthinura}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- AnAge, Human Ageing Genomic Resources (de Magalhães et al.), used under CC BY 3.0.
- 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.