Green Anole care sheet
by Marie Eguro
(Photo of Wilbur Eguro courtesy of Akira Yamanouchi)
From what I have seen in Florida, green anoles only tend to live about 2 years in the wild. Due to their small size, they have many predators that eat them, such as birds and snakes, domestic and wild small animals, bigger lizards, and even some fish! But in captivity they can live to be 6 or more years old if cared for properly. Here are some basics for green anole care:
Green anoles eat live food although I have heard of some that will lap up baby food or lick fruits. They tend to be attracted to insects that move more, such as crickets as opposed to mealworms or other slower creatures. I used to feed my anoles tiny mealworms but stopped as my anoles started living longer fed on pinhead or two week old crickets instead. Waxworms can be a great supplement to their diet but tend to have too much fat in them. Fruit flies are another great option. Crickets can be obtained pesticide free at the pet store and it seems to help anoles digest them better if they are fed a lot of small crickets as opposed to one or two large ones.
If you feed only crickets, vary the foods you feed to the crickets. The better nutrition and gut load you can give the crickets, the more nutrition will go to the anole. Crickets should be fed the following:
Dried fish food flakes Mustard, turnip, and dandelion greens or other thin leafed greens Sliced orange or other fruit (make sure you slice to expose juicy areas for the crickets to drink) Shredded squash, shredded carrots, etc.
I usually just take a little of my iguana’s food and give it to the crickets. Be sure to give fresh food to the crickets every day.
Once a week, dust the crickets with reptile vitamins such as Repcal multivitamin before giving them to the anole.
It is best to feed daily or every other day. Do not give too many crickets at one time. If the anole cannot eat them in one sitting you are giving too many, and the crickets will start to bite the anole if they have no food available for them.
It is very important that green anoles have water but they like to lick up water droplets, not drink from standing water, so spray one side of their cage daily.
Aquariums work great for these guys. A 10 gallon tank works great for one anole. I personally have used a 20 gallon tank for each anole, but now that my anole is very old and sensitive to humidity and temperature changes, it is easier to monitor the temp in a smaller cage and I use a small animal container. Please do not house two males together, and if you must, try housing them in at least a 20 gallon tank. I do not like to use substrates because it seems the crickets and other food items like to hide in many things: such as bark, gravel, dirt, etc. Having a clean glass floor seemed to work the best for me and is very easy to keep clean. I was really turned off by special "reptile bark" because I once saw a mite crawling in some fresh bark that was supposed to be prewashed. Slightly moist bark is great for females to lay their eggs in though. Please add plastic plants or other things for the anoles to climb on and hide behind. Just make sure it is easy to clean.
Green anoles need to be kept warm but they are more temperate animals, not really tropical animals. Temps of 80-90 are good for the daytime, and 70-80 is fine for nighttime. I like to use a small heat pad for nighttime heat, instead of a blue or red nightlight bulb. They also need Uv light, but not as much as iguanas for instance. This can be in the form of a vitalight or a Reptisun 5.0 light, placed at a distance about 6-12 inches away from the anole’s basking spot, and on for 12 hours every day.
I personally do not use any artifical UV light but rather let my anole sit on the window screen where the direct sunshine hits for about 10 minutes, twice a week. This seems to keep my anole perfectly healthy.
Keep lights on for 12 hours everyday. They need darkness and quiet to sleep.
Green anoles are quite fragile, small creatures so please handle them carefully. A tame anole will just sit on your finger or drink from your hand, and none of my anoles that I purchased from a pet store have ever bitten me in the 15 years I have had these animals. I have heard of green anoles biting humans and when I went to Florida to observe wild green anoles, any ones that I caught always tried to bite me. Sometimes a large male will see me and start to bob it’s head and let out its dewlap, perhaps as a challenge or to try to scare me off. I have observed wild green anoles mating, fighting between males, and even egg laying.
Never pick up an anole from it’s tail. It can fall off.
Adult green anoles can be sexed easily visually. Males are larger than females in general and have larger heads proportionately to their bodies. Green anoles, even males have NO visible femoral pores like an iguana would. But very often the hemipenal bulges are visible at the base of the tail on a male. Males have much larger dewlaps although it is usually retracted and does not hang down the way an iguana’s dewlap does. Try putting your male anole up to a mirror and see if he bobs his head and lets out his dewlap. Females have dewlaps too but are much smaller than male dewlaps.
Anoles will shed periodically and usually the entire body at once, or the entire head, or the entire tail. For some reason they tend to shed in these three sections. They often like to eat their shed skins, and this is no cause for alarm.
This is by no means a complete guide to green anoles, these are only brief tips to give them a healthy and happy home.
Please visit Wilbur's sister's page, Sammy J. The green iguana.