Spiny-tailed iguana

Weight

968 g

Length

28.5 cm – 29.6 cm

Lifespan

8.2 years

Diet

Herbivore

Longest recorded lifespan

16 years

Main food

Not recorded

Habitat

forest

Young per litter or clutch

11 – 50

Age at maturity

3 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 pectinata (Wiegmann, 1834)

Synonyms Ctenosaura brachylopha, Ctenosaura brevirostris, Ctenosaura parkeri, Ctenosaura teres brachylopha, Cyclura pectinata

Catalogue of Life

CompareSpiny-tailed iguana vs Black iguanaSpiny-tailed iguana vs SwamperSpiny-tailed iguana vs Veracruz spiny-tailed iguanaSpiny-tailed iguana vs Guatemalan black iguana

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  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
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• 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{spiny_tailed_iguana_2026,
  title = {Spiny-tailed iguana (Ctenosaura pectinata)},
  author = {{CreatureData}},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://creaturedata.com/animals/spiny-tailed-iguana},
  note = {Data as of 2026-11-11}
}