What would be a good breed of pet lizard to have?

Question

I'm looking for a kind of small/medium size lizard for me to have as a pet, preferably one with a good nature, any ideas?

Answer 1

Don't listen to Kara there is no way her bearded dragon is 3.5 feet long. They just don't get that big. But since only a couple of people actually answered your question I'll add to the list.  

For a small lizard (around a foot or so) You will be able to keep all of these lizards in a 20 gallon tank for the entire life of the lizard. Most of them deal with handling well and are friendly.

Leopard gecko

leopard lizard (yes different species)

emerald swift

blue spiny lizard

spiny crevace lizard

fire skink

ocellated skink

giant whiptail

armadillo lizard

festive amevia

pale agama

For a medium lizard (up to 2 feet or so) these can be in a tank that is 30-55 gallon tanks, depends on species you choose.

Bearded dragon

blue tongue skink

yellow throated plated lizard

uromastix

chuckwalla

Please do research on any species you choose so you can have your lizard thrive.  When you go to get the lizard, ask to hold it, if the store says no, don't get it.  You will need to look at the eyes, are they sunken in? Does the skin just hang or is the lizard extra skinny? Could be a sign of malnurishment or dehydration. Does the lizard have a clean area around the cloaca? Ask how long they have been at the store, what he has been eating, last time he ate. Does he try to bite you (yes that can be a good thing)? Do the rest of them in the tank (if more than one) look similar in size and health? If you see one sitting by himself there is usually a reason (unless it's sleeping) so you might not want to get that one. Does he have a complete tail? If not and if they can regenerate, has the growth started again or was completed? Does he have all toes? Do they look health and not like sheds have built up on them? If you don't like what you see try a different store, I would go to two or three before picking out a lizard if you can, unless you see something that you just have to have. Good luck.

Answer 2

Deffinatly bearded dragon, ive got one their the nicest lizards ever

Answer 3

Don't listen to the guy that said a savannah monitor they get 3-4 feet and need an 8 foot long cage that's also 4 foot wide and tall. Some good lizards for beginners are

leopard gecko,fat tailed gecko, crested gecko, bearded dragon,armadillo lizard, anoles, and blue tongue skink

THESE DONT MAKE GOOD STARTER LIZARDS

monitors

tegus

iguanas

chameleons

water dragons

baskilisks

Answer 4

Crested gecko are very well naturd and grow up 10 8 in big, they will tolerate handling, leopard geckos are also great, they tolerate handling as well and get up to 10 in, annd bearded dragons, they tolerate handling and get up to 3 ft  all of these are very low maintence

Answer 5

leopard gecko

bearded dragon

they are both easy to care for once u have to correct set-up friendly and easy going lizards

oh and there will be some moron who says iguana (there always is) just ignore them

Answer 6

BEARDED DRAGON... The best lizard ever.

Answer 7

A Guide to Buying Lizards

The ins and outs of the reptilian pet trade

Nearly every day I get an e-mail that goes like this: "Hi, I went to the local pet shop and saw a nice lizard, fell in love with it and bought it. The people there did not know much about lizards and now I am trying to find out...." This is about the worst possible scenario.

The first thing that you should do is decide what kind of lizard you want. Then you should search for information in books, magazines and on the internet. Now, the internet can be somewhat tricky. In general you should avoid personal sites and pages with almost no information on them, as they are likely wrong or misleading. The best sort of sites are the pages of breeders who breed the sort of reptile that you are interested in. There is a certain level of care necessary to keep an animal alive, and a better level of care necessary to get an animal to breed. Someone who successfully breeds the species that you are interested in will have to know how to care for them well. Someone repeating what they heard from a pet store about the animal which they've owned for three months does not. (Reptiles are very good at surviving bad conditions for a long time, so make sure that whoever you are getting your advice from has at least a year of experience with the species. Many types of reptiles (especially snakes) can withstand starvation and all-but-complete dehydration for months.) NEVER buy a lizard if you do not know how to take care of it.

While a few wild caught lizards are OK and do well, like Sudan Plated lizards, most of them do not do well at all. The reptile import business is often very harsh and usually the animals are badly overcrowded. Pretty much every horror story which you've heard about the old parrot trade applies to the modern reptile trade (though reptiles will usually live through conditions which will immediately kill parrots). Typically imported reptiles are weakened and very stressed. Worse, the overcrowding usually spreads disease and parasites.

While all sorts of animals are important, this is especially common of cheaper species. And the cheaper the animal, the more likely that it was treated badly and will die within weeks of purchase. Here are a few of the cheaper species which are always imported: butterfly agamas, ameivas, red headed agamas, toadhead agamas.

The other problem with wild-caught animals is that they are often handled roughly by humans and as a result very distrustful. If they are adults, it doesn't much matter if they were mistreated, as adult animals which grew up in the wild (where they have escaped being something else's dinner many times) will naturally just be anti-social. They will have learned through a long and hard life that being social to other species is a good way to get eaten, and we look like predators.

Finally, recently we have seen how African rodents can pass a life threatening virus to American rodents (prairie dogs). This is also true for lizards. The lizards from different continents have different viruses and parasites. In places where they come all together for distribution they may infect each other, but still look good. Then they may die in your well meant care weeks later.

For all of these reasons, you should only buy captive-bred animals that are well cared for. If at all possible it is best to buy directly from the breeder, as this minimizes the chance that the animals are infected with dangerous parasites due to contact with other reptiles at dealers. (Buying direct from breeders also generally minimizes cost on captive-bred animals, though that is not always the case.)

Even with captive bred animals, however, here there are a few things to watch out for. For the breeder, it is easier and cheaper to sell the babies as small as possible. Newly hatched baby lizards are often delicate, especially lizards like bearded dragons. Even if the somewhat older ones are more expensive it is worth while to choose them over the younger ones.

Now we come to the subject of pet stores. Pet stores are sometimes good places to buy a reptile, but most often they are terrible. Between overcrowding, the spread of disease, mite infestations, no information (or bad information), and an often completely incompetent staff, many pet stores are traps that you can only escape by buying nothing. Even worse, there are too many pet stores run by hustlers who will happily lie to you in order to make a sale. Here are some signs to look for and signs to watch out for when buying a lizard in a pet shop:

GOOD SIGNS

There are only a few lizards in a terrarium.

There is ONLY one species to a terrarium.

The animals look alert and have their eyes open.

There are even scientific names.

There are care sheets for every species sold.

Every animal has a clean and full water dish.

Animals (except temperate animals such as corn snakes and gartner snakes) have heat lamps or heat pads.

Hiding places are provided to keep the animals from stressing.

They may have adults as store pets so you can see what you are going to be getting yourself into.

BAD SIGNS

The seller tells you that the care is "The same as in iguanas", or "the same as in bearded dragons" (or any other lizard). That is almost always not true, and by saying this they are trying to avoid spending time explaining with you. Often enough, they simply do not know the correct care and are trying to dodge the issue.

Lizards are crowded into few enclosures.

Dead or sick lizards are still in the enclosures with other lizards. Dead animals should always be promptly removed, and responsible stores will quarantine any sick animals (usually in a back room) and refuse to sell them.

People that do not tell the truth to you. One easy way to check this is to point at a lizard that is always wild caught ( like an adult Mali Uromastyx, a butterfly agama, a red headed agama, a baby green waterdragon, etc) and ask: Is that captive bred or wild caught? When they say captive bred, then they are lying. Expect more lies to follow.

Mislabeling: One example of typical mislabeling is small Ermeias lizards, which have eyed dots on the sides. They are often labeled as Jeweled Lacers, which is not true. Columbian tegus are often labeled as argentine tegus, probably because argentine tegus cost more. As you may not be familiar with what every lizard looks like, if you see a lizard that you are interested in, go home and look it up on the internet. If the pictures do not match the name, you should look elsewhere to purchase a reptile (be careful, however, as sometimes animals will have multiple common names, or the same common name is used for more than one species).

Different kinds of lizards in one terrarium.

If you sniff at the corner where the garbage cans are, it smells like dead animals.

f***s and urates are not promptly removed and cleaned.

There are no sources of heat like heat lamps or heating pads. (this is not a problem for temperate animals like corn snakes and garter snakes.)

  

Kalra

Answer 8

easy to take care of and breed, leopard gecko  

Answer 9

Bearded dragon, they're easy look:

Depends on the size. I started off in 20 gal, then a 40 gal. They get upto 3.5 feet (mines 3 ft) and grow fast as babies.

Do NOT feed only crickets, they will get a protein overload and die just like if you over dust crickets it will give them calcium build up.

When you get a baby feed mashed juvie pellets and apple flavored, or any flavor, pedialyte b/c its healthier than just veggies. And do that 4 days and in between feed crickets. Just so it wont be biased on foods.

Do NOT put it on cali-sand no matter what they say. They can eat it by being curious and eat too much and get inpacted, become paralized, and die painfully. So use repti-carpet it's whole life b/c it can happen at any size. Not even play sand, thats retarded. That happend to my first one when I got two, fortunantly my second is my big girl now :].

Get a UV strip light of either 8.0-10.0 And a basking light APPROPRIATE for the size tank. (ie 20 needs 75-100, 40 needs 100-150.) For a baby, use a 75 watt.They have infared lights in same watts, incase your house temp at night falls below 75, they will most deff need this. Its good bc the can't tell its light they just sense its a hot night. Just switch out the basking for infared when the 12 hr period for lighting is done, and turn the Uv off too.

Make sure the water bowl is big enough for them to sit in and small so won't drown. They use this to soak in the water b/c theoretically reptiles can't drink out of bowl they drink off of their body, mainly eyes. It takes training to drink out of a bowl,but i did it. They also have water fountains that show movement so it helps them learn.

Also on the basking side, make sure you have a nice rock or decor so they can get diff degrees of heat. And on the UV side have something like alot of plants and wood toys so they can cool there. Have 3 guages for temp 1 thermometer on the basking and UV side. And have a hydrometer near bottom of tank in the middle to make sure the moisture is the right degree so they wont get sick.

thats pretty much it. Oh, they have beardie hammocks that mine reallllly likes in the cool area.

Any other questions, just email me:]

Answer 10

iguana!!!!!!!!!

Answer 11

A Savannah Monitor

you dont want a leopard gecko there to small and dont get big at all you will get bored with it when it stops growing after 5 months there way to small and bearded dragons are pretty boring to they dont get very big either and they have hard sharp scales making it hard to handle them or even want to hold them get a savannah monitor they can get up to 4 feet long and make great pets they are very tame and are very active they dont just lay in one spot all day for 24 hours then move to a new one they actually move around and at firt when they are young they will be agressive because they are small and scared of people so much bigger than they are but as they get olderthey become very calm and can be handled i have 4 savannah monitors 2 that i have had for 6 years and i have never been bitten in my whole life by a savannah monitor they are the best choice as far as lizards they will learn to love you and love being with you when i let my monitors out of their enclosure they will crawl up to me and lay on my lap there great pets and dont take much work just make sure they have food to eat at least every other day and change there water when it gets dirty another good thing about monitors is they will always use there water bowl as a spot to poo and pee so you dont really have to worry about the tank getting filled with **** and have to clean it all the time but you should still clean it when it starts to smell or looks like it needs to be cleaned  

Answer 12

a bearded dragon if you put 1 on your shoulder it will not move