The Sunwatcher Toadhead Agama Lizard (Phrynocephalus helioscopus) is a small lizard in the agamid family. It is also known as the Fergana Toadhead Agama.
The Sunwatcher Toadhead Agama Lizard has a short, wide head, and a short nose. It has rough skin. It has scale fringes around its eyes to keep out the desert sand. It varies in colour from light-beige to grey to dark-brown, with white, black, and red patterns that camouflages it with its environment. It has a light underbelly. It has partially fringed toes to help it walk on sand.
It grows to about 35 centimetres (14 inches) long.
The Sunwatcher Toadhead Agama Lizard is native to Asia and Eastern Europe, in countries such as southern Russia, Tajikistan, and Kazakhsan.
It prefers open arid and semi-arid habitats. It lives underground in burrows during the day.
It is insectivorous, eating beetles and crickets, but it will also eat spiders and worms. It uses a sit and wait strategy, in which it waits for its prey to come close to it.
When startled, it curls its tail over is body.
The Sunwatcher Toadhead Agama Lizard is oviparous. The female lays 1-6 eggs, which hatch after 35-40 days.
[Location of photographs: Tashkent Zoo, Uzbekistan]
Photographer: Martina Nicolls
Martina Nicolls: SIMILAR BUT DIFFERENT IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM