# beginner help and ID?



## Dracunos (Sep 13, 2014)

Hello everyone. I am brand new to lizard care.

I recently caught a baby or juvenile lizard in my office at work. I've been unable to identify him, and was wondering if I could have some help with that, as well as some basic requirements for caring for him, expected size, etc. I'll try to upload a pic.

He seems to be doing okay, hopefully my makeshift setup is okay at least temporarily.

I also have some questions about potentially releasing him, I've had him for just a couple days, I vaguely read something about releasing being bad? Does that have anything to do with wild caught lizards?

He's about an inch long not including the tail, so far I've unsuccessfully fed him non living food, successfully fed him flightless fruit flies, and he seems to be drinking water from the little rocks I put in there.

His enclosure is a bit small, but he really is tiny; what's more concerning is that I don't really see a good way to put a heat source in there for him to bask or whatever else they need heat to do. So far (I live in the desert, it's about 90+ degrees in my garage) I've been taking him out to the garage for a few hours after work to try to give him some heat. Normally mid 70s in my house according to thermostat. I don't really have any plantlife or anything other than rocks, and some locally procured 'desert landscape' in his pad. Apparently it is 7.1"L x 4.1"W x 5.5"H.

I accidentally dropped too many fruitflies in there at once, fished some out, how many is too many? I read overfeeding is bad. How many fruit flies per day, for example, does he need? Does he require a lot of variety in diet like turtles? I don't think he's eating the freeze dried anole food at all.


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## cat001 (Apr 12, 2008)

It appears to be a Mediterranean House Gecko

I'd always advise releasing native wildlife back because of potential complications and welfare issues of keeping wild reptiles. They're prone to chronic stress which can wear them down eventually, inducing suffering and ill health as a result in some cases. It is absolutely not recommended, however, to release captive bred animals. Captive bred animals are those which have undergone selective breeding within captivity and have resultantly undergone genetic changes (colour and behaviour alterations) as well as learnt dependancies on humans and are generally better adapted to thriving in captivity than their wild born counterparts. There are two strong reasons not to release captive bred animals into the wild; 1. It may not be a native species. Non-natives have caused massive destruction to native ecosystems and can be very damaging to the environment. In a non-native environment the released animal could also suffer as animals are specifically evolved and adapted to their native home-lands. 2. Having undergone selective breeding for more docile traits and better adaptability to captivity as well as an increased dependancy on humans the released animal may struggle to survive, even if released into it's native environment. And if it does manage to survive and breed it may pass on detrimental genes to a wild population.

However, in your case the animal is wild, not captive bred so can be released.

Unfortunately reptiles exhibit 'masking' behaviours which means they hide any indicators of ill health and will only appear ill or coping poorly when it's condition is severe.

It must be appreciated that reptiles are very specialised with unique and specific care requirements that are different between species. They all have different preferred optimal temperature zones which they can access in their large environment by moving between different micro-climates, and to replicate this in captivity requires an understanding of the species thermo-regulatory behaviours and the species life history in general (thigmotherm or heliotherm? Nocturnal, crepuscular or diurnal? etc). Optimum thermal temperature will effect digestion, nutritional uptake and overall health. Different temperatures activate different enzymes so it's important to have the right equipment to allow the animal to thermoregulate appropriately. Basking behaviour also effects UV requirements (what kind of UV bulb? low or high intensity UV, UV even required for the species, Vitamin D3 supplements required?). Hide in rock outcrops or burrow - micro-climates. Climb or stay low to the ground? 

In order for an animal to thrive you need to allow it to exhibit it's full range of behavioural repertoires, and in order to do this you need to know what those behaviours are. Nutritional needs are very important to get right as their is a huge range of potential nutritional issues. In captivity often a varied diet and nutritional supplementing is required (multi-vitamin and calcium) as well as gut-loading the insects to raise their nutritional status.

Reptile keeping is more complex than what's often appreciated which I suppose is why so many die so young due to inadequacies in care. Many purchase reptiles as a novelty without understanding just how complex their needs can be.

Sorry that was so long but thought it may be interesting for you to know.


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