How to Care for Green Anole Lizards

The green anole lizard has a pointy nose and a tail that is usually about twice as long as its body. Its coloring changes from green to brown when it gets cold or upset. Fully grown, a green anole lizard is about five to eight inches long. If you follow these steps to care for them properly, green anole lizards can live for up to seven years.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Tank
• Substrate
• Reptile ornaments
• Heat lamp
• Small insects
• Plastic spray bottle

1. Provide your green anole lizard with a 20-gallon or larger tank as its home. A 20-gallon tank is suitable for up to two lizards.

2. Cover the bottom of the tank with one to two inches of reptile substrate. You can also use bark mulch, orchid bark, ground coconut fiber, or peat moss.

3. Use plants or reptile ornaments to provide places for your green anole lizard to climb.

4. Place a heat lamp somewhere above that tank that will provide 85 to 90 degree Fahrenheit basking temperatures. If the heat lamp does not provide UV light, also provide a UV producing lamp.

5. Maintain a tank temperature of 75 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit and humidity of 60 to 70 percent.

6. Feed your lizard crickets, meal worms, wax worms, cockroaches, fruit flies or other small insects. Feed your lizard as much as it can eat in one sitting, once a day.

7. Supplement your lizard's diet with calcium and vitamin D.

8. Mist the tank using a plastic spray bottle of distilled water 2 to 3 times a day or enough to maintain the appropriate humidity and provide water.

9. Clean your green anole lizard's tank and care for the plants in the tank as needed.

Tips & Warnings

• Green anole lizards can climb smooth surfaces, so use a tank with a secure lid.
• Care for male green anole lizards in an isolated tank or with one or two females.