Thorny devil

Our sources give 7.1 young per litter or eggs per clutch, with 1 litter or clutch per year. The IUCN Red List assesses the thorny devil globally as Least Concern (LC), which is not a threatened category.

Weight

20.4 g – 25.9 gsrc for Weight

Length

9.26 cm – 10.6 cmsrc for Length

Lifespan

Not recorded

Diet

Carnivoresrc for Diet

Longest recorded lifespan

20 years

Main food

Not recorded

Habitat

desert, shrublandsrc for Habitat

Young per litter or clutch

3 – 10src for Young per litter or clutch

Age at maturity

12 months – 3 yearssrc for Age at maturity

Litters or clutches a year

1 – 2src for Litters or clutches a year

Reproduction

Eggssrc for Reproduction

Active

By day (diurnal)src for Active

Lifestyle

Terrestrialsrc for Lifestyle

Conservation status

Least Concern (IUCN)src for Conservation status

Countries on record

Not recorded

Not recorded

The thorny devil is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List: it is not currently at risk of extinction.

1. LCLeast Concern
2. NTNear Threatened
3. VUVulnerable
4. ENEndangered
5. CRCritically Endangered
6. EWExtinct in the Wild
7. EXExtinct

Category via Wikidata (CC0). Find the full assessment on the IUCN Red List. See all Least Concern species. What the categories mean.

1. kingdomAnimalia
2. phylumChordata
3. classReptilia
4. orderSquamata
5. familyAgamidae
6. genusMoloch
7. SpeciesMoloch horridus Gray, 1841

Synonyms Acanthosaurus gibbosus

Catalogue of LifeWikipediaiNaturalistITISWikidataIUCN Red List

CompareThorny devil vs Moloch browniThorny devil vs Moloch granti

• 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
• 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).
• 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
• 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
• 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{moloch_horridus_2026,
  title = {Thorny devil (Moloch horridus)},
  author = {{CreatureData}},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://creaturedata.com/animals/moloch-horridus},
  note = {Data as of 2026-11-11}
}