Which Lizard Is Right For You?

If you adore lizards, but don’t know anything about how to care for one or which one to welcome into your life, or perhaps you have a child who desperately wants their very first lizard to love, please read on. I have some tips to help you…

First, especially if you’re considering a bearded dragon, you can always come back and read the many blog posts here at Lizardplanet.com or recommend it to a friend. I’m happy to help with questions or assist, if I can, in connecting you with a way to adopt a homeless lizard from a shelter via the contact page.

🦎Here are things to consider before bringing a lizard into your home.💓

• LOYALTY: If you get one, will you keep it for the rest of its life? Is your life stable to the extent you won’t have to try to find it another home? – Because it is WRONG WRONG WRONG to not treat your pets like family. We don’t abandon loved ones because we couldn’t foresee the future, we find solutions (animals should be happy & you do not want the guilt later because you didn’t do what it took to do the right thing)!
• MONEY: Do you have financial means for veterinary care; a varied diet (whether your lizard is omnivorous, carnivorous, or herbivorous); UVA & UVB light fixtures, bulbs & replacements; an appropriate-sized enclosure or an entire room to fit the size of your lizard as an adult; supplies for a bioactive enclosure or suitable substrate? *Note: After the initial up-front costs and barring a veterinary emergency, lizards are quite inexpensive animals. There’s no vaccines, grooming costs, or flea medicine needed.
• TIME: Lizards don’t require much time, but handling and a relationship are very important. These reward both you and the lizard. Many lizards, especially medium to large ones actually thoroughly enjoy companionship and cuddles with their humans. If you don’t handle them enough, it will show in their behavior and emotions. Do know that you may also need an enclosure for your lizard’s live food (sold at pet supply stores and online) and you have to take a tiny bit of time to feed the lizard’s food (crickets, mealworms, etc.) fresh food daily as well.
• SPACE: Know how large your lizard will be at the adult age. Lil Murph, seen above, grew to 20″ long. Green Iguanas can become as long as 7′ (2.1 meters) from head to tail tip, and the Komodo dragon (one of the monitor lizard species) can grow up to 10′ (3 meters) long! Consider your living space as well as where you may be later to the best of your ability. I know a number of people (including myself some years back) who have had grown green iguanas and they basically have the run of the house just like a cat or dog would. *Rubbing alcohol for carpets and bleach for hard floors, & paper towels are needed to clean up after a poo and sanitize the area. 🧼🫧What people often do, is have a huge enclosure, or an entire room, or simply a large setup in the corner of a room with the appropriate lighting and heat rigged up for large lizards to get what they need when they need it. Often a minimum number of hours exposed to natural sunlight or artificial UVA & UVB is necessary for health and proper metabolization of nutrients for lizards.
• EDUCATION: I can’t emphasize the importance of this enough. If you decide to get a lizard from a pet store, which I hope you don’t, and go to a shelter instead (to not support the evils of the reptile trade), feel free to ask the employees questions, but fact-check everything they tell you. You can go back to get your lizard after you’ve gone home and researched which substrate (basically the flooring they’ll walk on and eat off of) is best, the best mister to use if your lizard requires very high humidity, the best light fixtures, how you’ll secure the lights, how large will your lizard grow, how long does the species live, is it prone to periodontal disease or other health issues, how to keep things sanitary, and on and on. *I’ve had lizards for an accumulative 18-ish years, I can help with tips for keeping things sanitary and much more.
• SAFETY: If you have small children or immature adults in the house, or have any reason to think your lizard may be unsafe either from humans or other pets in the home, consider waiting to get a lizard until both of you can always have peace-of-mind in the home.

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There’s a general rule regarding what a fair-sized enclose is for a lizard: For terrestrial (ground-dwelling) lizards, it’s about twice as long as the body from head to tail tip, and some claim a width of half of the body’s full length. For arboreal ones (climbing species), a height twice their body length.

I disagree, with one exception, if your lizard is out of its enclosure a lot, being with you outside in the sun or in safe areas of the home, etcetera, so that it is not imprisoned, so to speak, all day everyday, and is in its enclosure primarily only to get the hours of light it needs, warmth, and sleep, and still has plenty of room, I think it’s okay.

Lil’ Murph’s enclosure is 48″ L x 18″ W, which I believe is fair for a 20″ lizard who gets hours outside of the enclose every day.

I don’t agree with the height guideline for those whose nature it is is to climb more than anything. Imagine being a climbing lizard in the wild and then you’re tossed into a cage where you can only climb a tiny bit. But, maybe a long cage with some amount of height and plenty of climbing options along the length can counteract that cooped up feeling.

Finally, consider your expectations. Do you like to cuddle, maybe you work days and may appreciate a nocturnal lizard, perhaps you’d like one that you can rest across your forearm and walk around with (Murph & I always did this, but we were entirely bonded and he had a very calm nature), this is somewhere around a bearded dragon size, but can work for some geckos & more.

If you prefer a more of a dog-sized lizard that you can walk on a leash, maybe a green iguana is your ideal companion.

There are just so many lizards to love. And they are all beautiful individuals with various living requirements.

❤️I hope you’ve found this insightful and hopefully helpful. There are so many lizards out there who need human compassion.

I’ve had salamanders, a green iguana, and two bearded dragons, and they all have personalities. I miss each and every one of them. People have asked me if I plan to get another lizard. Well, none of my lizards are replaceable. Three years after my beardie, Copper, passed, I still thought that if I got another bearded dragon, I’d only want it to be her. But that didn’t happen. Murph won my heart and I love him for who he is.

Today April 23rd, would be mine & Murph’s 9 year anniversary together. I miss him every single day. I spent some time today where we spent our day together last year. It was lonely. It seems that lately, when an animal needs me, it finds me… or maybe when I need it… it finds me.

“Give me Lizardry or give me Death! – ❤️Murph & Dawn