Uromastyx in America: Import/Export

Two accounts of the same trade

The CITES Trade Database collects countries’ annual reports of international wildlife trade. An import records an animal received from another country. An export records an animal sent out. A reexport is an animal sent on after it was previously imported.

For 1977–2024, the U.S. reported receiving 390,971 live Uromastyx. Other countries reported sending 427,117 to the U.S. These figures describe the same inbound trade from two reporting perspectives. Do not add them together.

The difference is not a death count. Timing, missing reports and permits covering more animals than were actually shipped can all produce discrepancies. An empty year means no number was reported in the extract, not necessarily that no trade occurred.

The earliest record located was in 1977, when another country reported sending two animals to the U.S. It is not evidence of the first Uromastyx ever entering the country.

What stands out

• Two recorded names dominate. U. geyri and U. dispar account for 274,676 animals, or 70.3% of U.S.-reported imports. Geyri alone accounts for 157,183, or 40.2%.
• Geyri’s share increased. It rose from 23.4% in 2000–2009 to 86.3% in 2020–2024. Those are shares within each period, not annual import rates.
• 2001 was the largest reported year. The U.S. reported receiving 33,103 animals. The lowest total during 2000–2024 was 5,355 in 2017.
• 2024 was lower than 2023. Imports fell from 12,901 to 9,176, a 28.9% decrease. That is one year-to-year change; imports had risen from 2022 to 2023.
• Species labels became more specific. Uromastyx spp. fell from 36.3% of imports in 1990–1999 to about 0.01% in 2010–2024. A more specific label does not prove that the identification was correct.

The exporting country is not always the origin

Mali had the largest all-time total as the last exporting country, with 148,390 animals, followed by Ghana at 61,809 and Togo at 61,013. The leading exporter changed over time: Egypt in the 1990s, Mali in the 2000s, Ghana in the 2010s and Togo in 2020–2024.

An exporting country can be an intermediary. The largest reported routes through another country make that distinction clear.

U.S.-reported imports with an explicit, specified origin different from the exporting country. These are declared routes, not independently traced journeys. Other stops may be missing.

Origin is blank for 253,036 animals. In the PDF’s origin ranking, I provisionally use the last exporting country when that field is blank. Under that rule, Mali and Niger together account for 73.2% of imports. This is an attribution method, not proof that all those animals were collected or bred in those countries.

Imports by recorded species name

These names are preserved as returned by the database. The counts have not been retrospectively divided among newer species or subspecies.

Total: 390,971. Uromastyx spp. means the database does not specify a species. A small or absent named count does not establish the number of that species actually present in the United States.

Names changed while trade continued

Scientific revisions, CITES adoption and consistent use by traders are separate events. A historical label cannot always be translated cleanly into a modern species count.

Benti, yemenensis and shobraki

The extract records 7,855 animals as U. benti and one as U. yemenensis, with no separate entry for U. shobraki. Older benti records may include animals now recognized as yemenensis or shobraki. The records do not let us divide those earlier totals reliably.

Acanthinura and nigriventris

U. nigriventris was recognized as a separate species in the March 2009 revision; U. acanthinura remained a valid species. Older acanthinura records may include nigriventris. Reliable identification and origin evidence would be needed to separate them.

Other distinctions the totals cannot resolve

• U. dispar records do not distinguish U. d. dispar, U. d. flavifasciata and other subspecies.
• U. aegyptia totals do not separate aegyptia, microlepis and leptieni. U. ornata totals do not separate ornata and philbyi.
• Older ocellata labels may represent a broader group, including macfadyeni.
• Saara was restored for hardwickii, asmussi and loricata in 2009. Those animals require a separate database query and are not included in this Uromastyx total.

What the data cannot establish

A captive-related source code is a declaration, not independent proof of captive breeding. These records also cannot tell us how many animals survived, who currently keeps them, or the scale of undocumented trade.

My estimates are that roughly 95% of Uromastyx kept in the U.S. are wild-caught, and that U.S. breeders produce approximately 700–1,500 animals a year. These are practitioner estimates supplied for this project. They are unpublished, not independently verified and not findings calculated from the CITES data.

The report notes a hypothesis that some arrivals may have been recorded only as Uromastyx spp. or under a similar species name. That possibility should not be presented as an established explanation for an individual animal’s history.

All figures on this page summarize the supplied October 2026 report. This is historical research, not a current permit checklist. Check the current CITES Appendices and the relevant authorities before planning international movement.

Annual imports and exports

The table below retains both reporting perspectives. “U.S. sent out” includes reexports; “others received” means received from the U.S. The paired columns describe the same trade and should not be added.

The PDF appendix also shows 1975–1976 with no numbers and incomplete 2025 reports. Neither is used to extend the headline analysis beyond 2024. Annual species-by-species counts are on PDF pages 9–10.