Reptilia · Squamata
Uromastyx ornataHeyden, 1827
Ornate Mastigure
Photograph by Mickey Samuni-Blank, CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons
A rock-dwelling, day-active, plant-eating lizard from the Saharo-Sindian region, reaching 210 mm snout to vent.
Once published as Uromastyx ornatus, Uromastyx philbyi — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Agamidae › Uromastyx
- Grows to
- 210mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Herbivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 18years
Longer than 95% 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
- 2012
- Population trend
- Decreasing
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 18years
- Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradientmeasured
- 38.4°C
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 36.15°C97 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 32.8–39.5°C91–103 °F
TAU museum records: 18, Moldowan et al. 2022: 16
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 210mm8.25 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 152.8mm6 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 152.8mm6 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 49.5mm2 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 49.5mm2 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 334.6g11.8 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 130.7g4.6 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 8.1g0.29 oz
max 210 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
- Herbivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Saxicolous
- Habitat
- Desert, Grassland, Rocky, Savanna, Shrubland
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Active season · months of the year
- 10–12months
- Region
- Saharo-Sindian
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 50–1000m
- Range size
- 261,781km²
(mainly), some insects, young feed on arthropods (Bar and Haimovitch 2012), herbivorous (Werner 2016, Zari 2016, Spawls et al. 2023), see also Bendami et al. 2018
(and crepuscular, Wilms 2005)/diurnal (e.g., pers. obs. Zari 2016, Spawls et al. 2023)
Meiri, pers. Obs., Spawls et al. 2023
rarely above 1000 (Spawls et al. 2023); I usually see them at ~50 m (Spawls et al. 2023)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 9eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 3–19eggs
- Mean clutch
- 9eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 1per year
- Clutches a year
- 1per year
- First breeds at
- 24months
7-17 (e.g., Werner 2016, Mendelssohn and Bouskila 1989, Spawls et al. 2023)/8-19 (Wilms 2005), 3-13, mean 9 (TAU experimental zoo data)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Acrodontia
- Subspecies
- Uromastyx ornata ornata HEYDEN 1827 Uromastyx ornata philbyi PARKER 1938
- Described by
- Heyden
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1827
- Type locality
- Saudi Arabia
Keeping one
2 ft 9 in × 2 ft 9 in × 20.5 in(84 × 84 × 53 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.
Lives on rock, so stable hard surfaces and basking ledges suit it.
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 8.25 in (210 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 101 °F (38.4 °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
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.
34kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 335 g, the heaviest recorded for Ornate 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.
Morphs
0 with peer-reviewed genetics behind them, 1 resting on breeder consensus. Most references present both with the same confidence.
- Colour and conditionbreeder consensus
How blue, green and orange an animal shows. This tracks sex, temperature, season and condition far more than ancestry — males in good condition and properly warm are the bright ones.
Worth knowing. No single-gene morph is established in this species. Colour changes with temperature, season, condition and sex, so an animal photographed at its brightest will not look like that on arrival or all year. Females are considerably plainer than males throughout.
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
- — 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
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — 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). Uromastyx ornata. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/uromastyx-ornata
@misc{uromastyx_ornata_2026,
title = {Uromastyx ornata},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/uromastyx-ornata}
}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.