Jeweled Lacertas (Lacerta lepida)

[MedusasOwl]

After the last Expo, Karen and I have become enamoured with Jeweled lacertas. LVJ from the Expo breeds them as well as Taiwan Beauties, and is on my waiting list for baby VBBs. We may end up doing a trade when we have room for some lizards and give it/them Neptune's old cage. We always figured if we ever caved and got a legged reptile it'd be a beardie, but... we're even using this pic of LVJ Lacertas as our computer wallpaper now!!



Anybody here have experience with them? Not sure if you can keep them solo or in any combination other than breeding pairs, since that's the only way people ever mention keeping them. We'd just want pets.

[wilomn]

They are really neat lizards.

Males, adults, should not be kept together. When they're hatchlings it's almost impossible to tell males from females. Females can be kept in small groups. The males tend to grow larger and faster than the females and they also tend ot have more colour.

They can be very friendly lizards and are quite active during the day.

They are also easy to breed.

It's been a few years since I worked with them but they are on my "need to have" list right now.

Excellent choice.

[AzureN1ght]

Oooh, Sheree! They're beautiful! I can totally see you owning those colorful beauties Artistic inspiration in a little four-legged package. If you do end up getting a few, you know we'll need pictures!

[MedusasOwl]

SO gorgeous! If/when we do... no worries, there will be lots of pics! The texture is amazing too, I'm not sure how to describe it.

And yeah, Laura at LVJ showed me the babies and explained the difficulty telling babies apart ect. They do quite the color change as they get older, much brighter! I should have gotten shots of the babies too.

Wilomn, do you know if a male does alright by himself or are they social and really need a female around? Same for a female? Lizards are not my forte, but for these guys I'm willing to learn. Also, as they're easy to breed, if we got a male and female pair is it safe to assume we'd soon be overrun with babies?

[wilomn]

They're fine alone, females will get along with other females or one male and males need to be kept alone, they fight.

All in all they're great lizards.

[MedusasOwl]

Awesome, we're definitely thinking of either one male or two females. Thank you!

[ADEE]

they are beautiful.. good luck!

[HABU]

i haven't seen them in years.., nice!!

[MedusasOwl]

Thanks! It'll probably be a while (course I said that about beauties too, didn't I? ) but I'm getting excited! Totally worth the lighting and bug hassle.