Black iguana

Weight

956.3 g – 4.25 kg

Length

30.5 cm – 34.4 cm

Lifespan

22.4 years

Diet

Herbivore

Longest recorded lifespan

60 years

Main food

Not recorded

Habitat

forest

Egg incubation

94.7 days

Young per litter or clutch

12 – 88

Age at maturity

21 months – 2.87 years

Litters or clutches a year

1

Reproduction

Eggs

Active

By day (diurnal)

Conservation status

Not recorded

Countries on record

Not recorded

Not recorded

No conservation assessment is recorded for this species in our sources. That is not the same as being safe: it has not been matched to an assessment.

1. kingdomAnimalia
2. phylumChordata
3. classReptilia
4. orderSquamata
5. familyIguanidae
6. genusCtenosaura
7. SpeciesCtenosaura similis (Gray, 1831)

Synonyms Ctenosaura completa, Iguana, Iguana similis

Catalogue of Life

CompareBlack iguana vs SwamperBlack iguana vs Veracruz spiny-tailed iguanaBlack iguana vs Guatemalan black iguanaBlack iguana vs Spiny-tailed iguana

• An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles · CC0 1.0 · E096-269
  Myhrvold, N.P., Baldridge, E., Chan, B., Sivam, D., Freeman, D.L. & Ernest, S.K.M. (2015) An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96: 3109. https://doi.org/10.1890/15-0846R.1. Data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.3563457.v1
• AmphiBIO, a global database for amphibian ecological traits · CC BY 4.0 · v1
  Oliveira, B.F., São-Pedro, V.A., Santos-Barrera, G., Penone, C. & Costa, G.C. (2017) AmphiBIO, a global database for amphibian ecological traits. Scientific Data 4: 170123. https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2017.123. Data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.4644424.v5
• AVONET: morphological, ecological and geographical data for all birds · CC BY 4.0 · v7
  Tobias, J.A. et al. (2022) AVONET: morphological, ecological and geographical data for all birds. Ecology Letters 25: 581–597. https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.13898. Data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.16586228.v7
• Catalogue of Life eXtended Release · CC BY 4.0 · 2026-10-16 XR
  Catalogue of Life (2026). Catalogue of Life eXtended Release, version 2026-10-16 XR. Catalogue of Life Foundation, Amsterdam, Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.48580/dgzlf
• Wikimedia Commons · per file (CC0 / public domain / CC BY green, CC BY-SA amber, anything else not displayed) · 2026-11-11
  Wikimedia Commons contributors. Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org (each file credited to its author under its own licence).
• EltonTraits 1.0: species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals · CC0 1.0 · 1.0
  Wilman, H., Belmaker, J., Simpson, J., de la Rosa, C., Rivadeneira, M.M. & Jetz, W. (2014) EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95: 2027. https://doi.org/10.1890/13-1917.1. Data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.3559887.v1
• LepTraits 1.0: a globally comprehensive dataset of butterfly traits · CC0 1.0 · 1.0
  Shirey, V., Larsen, E., Doherty, A. et al. (2022) LepTraits 1.0: a globally comprehensive dataset of butterfly traits. Scientific Data 9: 382. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-022-01473-5. Data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.19874602.v1
• Northwestern European arthropod life histories and ecological traits (raw datasets) · CC BY 4.0 · 2024-12-17
  Logghe, G., Batsleer, F., Maes, D. et al. (2025) An in-depth dataset of northwestern European arthropod life histories and ecological traits. Biodiversity Data Journal 13: e146785. https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.13.e146785. Data: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13379714
• ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles · CC BY 4.0 · v1-2
  Oskyrko, O., Mi, C., Meiri, S. et al. (2024) ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data 11: 243. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-024-03079-5. Data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.24572683.v4
• Sharkipedia: a curated open access database of shark and ray life history traits · CC BY 4.0 · 1.0-2022-06-17
  Mull, C.G., Pacoureau, N., Pardo, S.A. et al. (2022) Sharkipedia: a curated open access database of shark and ray life history traits and abundance time-series. Scientific Data 9: 559. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-022-01655-1. Data: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6656525
• SquamBase 1.0 - a dataset of squamate species traits · CC0 1.0 · 1.0-dryad-v5
  Meiri, S. (2024) SquamBase - a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography 33(4): e13812. https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.13812. Data: https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.76hdr7t3b
• TraitCH: a multi-taxa functional trait dataset for Switzerland and Europe · CC BY 4.0 · 2.0
  Chauvier, Y., Adde, A., Bergamini, A. et al. (2025) TraitCH: a multi-taxa functional trait dataset for Switzerland and Europe. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15063844
• Wikidata · CC0 1.0 · 2026-11-11
  Wikidata contributors. Wikidata. https://www.wikidata.org (data retrieved via the Wikidata Query Service).
• Wikipedia (English) · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 2026-11-11
  Wikipedia contributors. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. https://en.wikipedia.org (text under CC BY-SA 4.0; each block names its article and revision).

@misc{black_iguana_2026,
  title = {Black iguana (Ctenosaura similis)},
  author = {{CreatureData}},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://creaturedata.com/animals/black-iguana},
  note = {Data as of 2026-11-11}
}