Persian Toad-headed Agama

The Persian Toad-headed Agama is a small diurnal desert lizard of Agamids family. This small predator forages on various small arthropods as ants, spiders, grasshoppers, beetles, bees and flyes, etc. It is the westernmost representative of the Central Asian genus of Toad-headed Agamas ''Phrynocephalus'' and is only known from deserts and semideserts of Near Eastern countries of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran and E Turkey. There is an ongoing scientific debate about the phylogeny and the taxonomic format of ''Phrynocephalus persicus''. The most recent studies suggest existence of at least two distinct forms from the Northern and Central Iran and Horvath's Toad-Headed Agama from Armenia, Azerbaijan, NW Iran and NE Turkey. The International Union for Conservation of Nature considers ''Phrynocephalus persicus'' and ''Phrynocephalus horvathi'' as two distinct species: where ''Persian Toad Headed Agama'' is Vulnerable, while the ''Phrynocephalus horvathi'' is critically endangered