Mr. Magic lizards new digs

[Ozzy]

As a rule, don't feed it anything as big or bigger than it's head. They will attempt to eat things that they can't. I have a viper gecko and one of the crickets managed to escape long enough to get to big. The gecko attempted to eat it anyway. I it dead with ahalf of a cricket hanging out of it's mouth.

 

[nepenthes_ak]

Rattler yea, allot of the workers can become secondary reproductives, which is why they will sustain them selfs.

Really neat, i had them for a short while until i got in some trouble at home and lost allot of my feeders. Roaches, Termites and stuff.

 

[swords]

Hmm, the baby crickets weren't bigger than his head but he seemed to be running from the crickets and acted as though they bit his toes but perhaps he was jumpy when they touched him? Maybe he acted that way cos he was in that smaller container and stressed?

I wish I knew how to tell if he was hungry. I put several doses of flies in today but not sure how many he actually got. Like right now he's sitting on a fern frond watching the plants and ground, is that a sign he's hungry?

I read online that he should have a shallow water dish, but I've seen him drinking the water from the misted plants, so is the tray just for bathing?

Also, at the petshop today I saw "Anole Food" (small dried flies in a jar), will he eat something not moving? I didn't buy it cos it seemed silly to me to expect him to eat a non moving item but you guys have more experience with these critters than me...

 

[Not a Number]

I used to get my horned toads to eat dead bugs by blowing on the bug to make it move. Reptiles instinctively eat just about anything that moves. If it's something inedible they spit it out.

 

[rattler]

Rattler and other foodies, There's a book called the Professional Breeders Guide to Rearing Live Food, publsihed by the same company who did the Professional Breeders Guide to Posion Frogs that was an english reprint of a German book. Does anyone have the live food book, is it worth it or can I find the same info online?

What do the feeder termites look like? Are they the grey/silver trilobite looking things under rocks and old wood?

dont have the book but if you get it tell me what its like cause ive been thinking about ordering it :grin:

the trilobite looking things are prolly silverfish if they have abody that tapers more or less to a point in the rear.....from what i understand they can be used as feeders......if they are more oval they are isopods, either sowbugs or pillbugs.....sow bugs are excelent feeders as far as food quality goes....however they generally make a bee line for cover and quickly disappear....good news is i use them as a garbage eater....they help break down dead plant material in the viv and if they show themselves are a bonus feeder.....i believe there are about 6 different species being cultivated for feeders.....most are just regional collected species but there are a few small tropical species being cultured....

read into anoles...IIRC they dont thrive on just insects....IIRC in the wild they eat necter and fruit pulp aswell........from what i understand its pretty easy to manufacture in your home using babyfoods and such....

 

[rattler]

Rattler yea, allot of the workers can become secondary reproductives, which is why they will sustain them selfs.

Really neat, i had them for a short while until i got in some trouble at home and lost allot of my feeders. Roaches, Termites and stuff.

thats what i thought....your culturing info sounded ALOT like info from over on the Arachnoforums. if you reread that info or attempt to culture them long term you will find that they are fairly difficult to culture. the termites you intially collect are pretty simple to keep alive for a month or two but getting a colony to last long term is quite difficult cause they are prone to crashing for no reason or not getting started at all.

the person who wrote that culture info keeps 4 different large cultures going because they crash for no reason so he doesnt have all his eggs in one basket.

your info is quite misleading because your cherry picking tiny parts of what is a large and loaded chunk of info from another site..................plus you have never tried it long term yourself.

 

[Finch]

Is this the trilobite? If so its the isopod - a woodlouse (sowbug), that rattler mentioned

 

[swords]

Yes, that's the one! I saw online today on several pages that you should not use isopods for food for Anoles, anyone know why? The site didn't say, is their shell too hard, not nutrious enough?

I gave him his first vitamin dusted flies this afternoon (I put about 8 dusted ff in there and I did see a few undusted ones from the other day walking around) he ate a few with the Reptivite so far so I guess that's good news. It's weird, he'll eat one then run back to his perch, bob his head a few times and relax then 15 minutes later go find another and run back to his perch, bob his head and then relax...

 

[rattler]

pill bugs are prolly to hard.......sowbugs are pretty soft......my lil dart frogs eat them

 

[nepenthes_ak]

Well I orginaly had 3 Colonies going, but then 2 of them crashed, just didn't do much. The one I had going was good, i think it just depends on how the reproductives do unless you can collect the main male and female reproductives in the early spring. I have a friend who is attempting to raise them in Test tubes, only problem is they are eating through the cotton almost close to the water, and they cover the tube with wood and their excrements so its hard to see them. (Arachnoboards is where i got that set up from), I guess the only way to raise termites is literally in your house.

 

[Finch]

The overlapping shell of the adult isopod can get lodged and caught. Its pretty hard regardless... pill bugs can be either isopods or compact millipedes. Its really had to tell the two apart. Dont feed millipedes usually. They all are slow moving so they are well defended with hydrogen cyanide, fouling hairs, armor as in the case of the pill bugs, or some odd secretion that paralyzes spiders and ants. One in the woods has one secretion so sticky that anything small that touches it gets fouled with debris and dies. Soft young white woodlouse are great but they disappear real quick into the substrate, useless caught quickly. My brown and green anoles rejected adults...

Use a thermometer and measure the hottest parts of the cage to see if the basking area is the right temperature. Just because its the warmest spot does not mean its warm enough. Better safe than sorry!


I think your lizard might be a female. It looks identical to my brown anole that i had,a nd it was a female. The red head and stripe are exactly the same.