Lacerta Dial-up Death & Lizard Qs

Meet Dana, our newest addition. :) Also, our very first lizard!! She's very alert, active, adorable and tame. We are totally in love with this girl. She's 3 years old, retired breeder female Jeweled Lacerta.

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:love: :love: :love: She's so adorable. And we have her husbandry down - temps, humidity, etc. All except the food. Lizards do eat once a day, right? Because she snubbed the dusted crickets (noisy little things) we offered this morning then we had to pick them out to make sure they didn't nibble her toes. She'd eaten before we brought her home Sat and typically wolfs down 12 large crickets in a sitting.

We may switch over to lobster roaches or something, or at least look for wingless crickets. We are not amused by the chirping. We enjoy the peace and quiet of keeping herps and rabbits, crickets are not condusive to this. :P But man, she is so worth it. What an absolute sweetheart.

This caresheet says the same as the info her previous owner gave us, but I'm confused about frequency or why she didn't want these crickets. Maybe I over dusted them? I did write her previous owner but I know she's busy on Sundays and am eager to get our beautiful Dana off to a good start in her new home!

Congrats on the new addition she is adorable :gj:

And as soon as I post this I get the long wonderful explanation I expected from LVJ sooner than I expected, lol! Dur. Ok, I'm all situated on the bugs now except for the noise factor. :rolleye2:

And thank you!

Oh she's lovely! She almost seems to be smiling for the camera LOL. It's so nice to hear of a retired breeding animal being adopted into a new and loving home. Congrats on adding her to yours.

Thank you! That first pic cracks me up because it looks like she has such a silly smile on. :love:

LVJ was sorry to let her go, but needed the space. She's a great lady and knew we'd spoil this special girl rotten like she deserves. :) Neptune's old cage was just sitting there begging for a lizard. Meant to be. :D

Really cool!!! Lizards aren't my "thing" but yours is a beaut.

Lizards are traditionally more Karen's thing, I'm a snake gal, but I've fallen hard for Dana. She feels amazing too, like velvet or like she's made out of hundreds of tiny beads, I'm very wowed by how soft she is.

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Originally Posted by MedusasOwl

She feels amazing too, like velvet or like she's made out of hundreds of tiny beads, I'm very wowed by how soft she is.

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it's funny you say that... i was thinking she looked like she's covered in native beadwork! lol! she's gorgeous!

I showed my daughter this, she also thought that last picture, looked like tiny beads!! Maybe the reason she didn't eat, new home, new environment. And yes crickets are LOUD, those are the females!! BTW, she is a beauty!! ove her colors!

read that they can eat superworms, & pinky mice

Oh what a beauty! She is the prettiest jeweled I've ever seen. :)

I love lizards nearly as much as snakes, but I just don't have room for the huge cages they require. Also, my BF refuses to have crickets in the house anymore since they drove him nuts. :D

Our crickets have been banned to the storage room outside. Not only were they annoying us, but the loud chirping was scaring the you know what out of one of our bunnies. Poor Unut, what a spaz!

Jeweled Lacertas both look and feel like native beadwork! It's really surreal. The males are even more brightly colored, LVJ breeds some gorgeous lizards and Taiwan beauty snakes too. If she were doing stuff online I'd be linking to her everywhere! But she always has a batch of baby Lacertas at the Tuscon Reptile Expo. :) Great lady and loves her herps to bits.

I'll be trying a pinkie mouse now and then as a treat and see what Dana thinks. She also likes waxworms and baby food as a treat once a week. But the majority is bugs! Turns out adult Lacertas only like to eat 3 times a week, which is why she was looking at me like I was crazy feeding her the same evening she'd already had a breakfast. Karen recaptured all the crickets and we'll be offering her another batch today, although she's a lot more interested in her new digs!

They like snails too if you have a source for clean ones.

If we come upon a good source of them, we'll certainly treat her to snails too. :) Thank you!

Ahh thank you for posting those! I had a lizard when I was very young that my parents got for me, and I only have a foggy memory of what it looked like. Those pictures are the closest I have ever seen to my memory, and I think I remember my dad calling it a "jeweled lizard". I'm sure that we weren't taking care of it right, but that wasn't my fault, I was only around six!

Roaches are definitely the way to go if neither you nor your family is creeped out by them, since they don't smell or chirp. You could keep some lobster roaches in a 10-gal aquarium or small plastic tub, as long as you slather a ring of vaseline around the top - that way they can't climb out. Lobster roaches can't fly, so you won't have to worry about having trouble catching them.

You could probably do silkworms too, which are extremely healthy for lizards - however, they're expensive to keep unless you have a big mulberry tree nearby, and are often out of stock.

Lacerta means Lizard in latin, I think, so yeah, Jeweled Lizard! I bet this was it, and if yours was a boy it would have been even more green and brightly colored. Here's a pic of a male and female together from the last Tuscon Reptile Expo!

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We're definitely thinking about lobster roaches, I wrote LVJ asking about them and I know AZ Reptiles down in Mesa carries them. (Best reptile shop I have ever been in, hands down!) We have some waxworms in the fridge to treat her with on Sundays, and she might like a pinky now and then too. :) We'll see about silkworms. Thank you!

The crickets are on notice! :colbert: