Lizards E-Book

Russ Case

• Herausgeber: CompanionHouse Books
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 122

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2006

Beschreibung

An entertaining and educational introduction to the world of lizards of all sizes, colors, shapes, and personalities, Lizards provides keepers of all ages with intriguing information about common and unusual lizards. This colorful guide by herp expert Russ Case offers beginners who are looking to adopt a lizard the right guidance for purchasing a healthy specimen and for creating a safe, comfortable home where the pet lizard can thrive. Beginners will learn about the anatomy of lizards and their behavior in the wild and in captivity. The chapter "Lizard Food" is a lesson in how to provide lizards with the proper nutrients so that owners meet all of the special needs of their pets. The chapter "Five Most Excellent Lizard Pets" presents the most common species for newcomers, including the leopard gecko, green anole, bearded dragon, Chinese water dragon, blue-tongued skink, each illustrated with color photos and detailed with specific advice about feeding and housing. Additional examples of lizards are covered in "Other Cool Lizards," such as the green iguana, chameleon, monitor lizard, tokay and day geckos and uromastyx; all of which are fascinating to read about though not recommended for beginners. A chapter on potential health problems gives a basic overview of how to care for and maintain captive lizards in the best of health. Sidebars throughout the text give the reader good advice on dos and don'ts to avoid common mistakes keepers make with these pet animals. Glossary included.

Leseprobe

Karla Austin, Business Operations Manager

Nick Clemente, Special Consultant

Barbara Kimmel, Managing Editor

Jarelle S. Stein, Editor

Kendra Strey, Project Editor

Cindy Weston, Interior Design

Melanie Irwin, Design Concept

Honey Winters, Cover Design

Copyright © 2006 by I-5 Press™

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of I-5 Press™, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Case, Russ.

Lizards / by Russ Case.

p. cm.

ISBN 1-882770-91-9

eISBN 978-1-620080-30-6

1. Lizards as pets. I. Title.

SF459.L5C37 2006

639.3'95—dc22

2005036585

An Imprint of I-5 Press™

A Division of I-5 Publishing, LLC™

3 Burroughs

Irvine, California 92618

Printed and bound in Singapore

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

1 Reptiles as Pets

2 Why People Like Lizards

3 Where to Get Lizards

4 Your Lizard’s Home

5 Lizard Food

6 Five Most Excellent Lizard Pets

7 Other Cool Lizards–Just Not for Beginners

8 Potential Health Problems

9 Do’s and Don’ts for Lizard Owners

Glossary

Recommended Reading

About the Author

Photo Credits

Uroplatus gecko

CHAPTER 1

Reptiles as Pets

Compared with other animals, reptiles (our scaly friends—snakes, lizards, and turtles) sometimes get a bum rap. Lots of people think reptiles—especially snakes—are slimy and want to bite and squeeze people, and maybe even use their fangs to inject them with poison. So when the time comes to choose a pet, millions of people pick animals that seem friendlier.

Bearded dragon

Take dogs, for example. Dog owners can play and exercise with their pooches, brush their hair, dress them up, and perhaps even enter them in dog shows. There are special dog beaches and parks, where dog owners gather by the dozens. There you see dogs running around, playing, barking, and having a great time. Dogs are loved because they give love back. They may lick people’s faces, jump on their owners, and want to be with them all the time.

Reptiles are different. I’ve never been to a snake beach or a lizard park, where people frolic and play with their scaly pets. Snakes don’t jump up and down when their owners come home from school or work. Lizards and turtles don’t lick your face to show how much they love you, and I’ve never seen a lizard riding in a car with its head hanging out the window and tongue flapping in the breeze. This is because pet reptiles aren’t as interactive as are dogs and some other pets. A pet lizard or snake may not want to be handled all the time, generally won’t snuggle with you, and may not respond to your affection (although many will tolerate some handling—when you get to chapter 6, look for the box titled Lizard Handling Hints).

Although reptiles are not usually interactive, they still can make great pets–especially for kids!

Eight Reasons Reptiles Make Great Pets

If your parents are not sure about letting a lizard into your house, ask them to think about the following points:

1. There are some great harmless beginner reptiles.

2. The risk of injury to responsible reptile keepers is much lower than it is with a dog, a cat, or even a parakeet.

3. Compared with other pets, reptiles are low maintenance.

4. Reptiles don’t have to be fed every day (but they shouldn’t be starved).

5. Their foods are readily available at pet shops and grocery stores.

6. Reptiles aren’t hairy, so they make great pets for people with allergies.

7. Keeping reptiles teaches young owners about caring and responsibility.

8. Reptiles are really cool!

People Really Like Reptiles

Reptiles have become really popular over the past several years. Go to any pet store—and you’ll see what I mean. For one thing, you’ll find many different types of herps. There are even pet stores that sell only reptiles. You won’t find dogs, parakeets, tropical fish, or cats there, but you are likely to see many different types of snakes, lizards (such as iguanas and chameleons), and frogs.

In addition to seeing lots of cool reptiles at pet stores, you’ll find oodles of stuff to help you take care of pet herps. Lots of companies sell things that make it easy to provide pet reptiles with happy homes. These things include different types of lights, gizmos to keep your herps warm, branches for them to climb on, cages to keep them in, and bowls for their water and food (you can read more about stuff like this in chapter 4).

People have been keeping pet herps for decades, but within the last ten years the hobby has become really popular. I can tell you one reason: it is because of the movie Jurassic Park. I don’t just write books about reptiles. I am also the editor of Reptiles magazine, and the fact that the magazine came out about the same time as Jurassic Park was really lucky! People saw the movie and loved it, and as a result, many wanted to learn about reptiles and how to keep them.

What’s a Herp?

Herp is a nickname for a reptile or an amphibian, and it comes from the word herpetology, which means the study of reptiles and amphibians. A scientist who studies these animals is called a herpetologist.

Something You Should Never Do

Dinosaurs are fascinating. Of course, it’s impossible to keep one as a pet (even if you could find one, it would be really expensive to feed it!), but many people think the next best thing to having their own little T-rex is having a pet lizard. And although it’s great that so many people became interested in reptiles after seeing Jurassic Park, there is a sad side to their new popularity.

After Jurassic Park, many pet herps were bought on impulse by people who didn’t know how to care for them. People would (and still do) see a neat-looking lizard in a store, and they would buy it right then and there. After all, these animals are very interesting, and some are really colorful. Often, however, the animal would slowly fade away because its new owner didn’t know how to take care of it. Even today, many reptiles die or end up in animal shelters because of this. That is why you should never buy a pet reptile on impulse!

This baby uromastyx lizard, though small and cute, is likely beyond the care abilities of the average beginner. Never buy a pet lizard on impulse.

If you’re a smart, caring owner, you’ll have a lot of fun with your reptile pets—even though they won’t jump up and down when you come home or lick your face. Reptiles are great pets in their own right. Congratulations if you’ve decided you want to take a shot at keeping them. Now let’s take a look at why people like lizards, the reptiles you came here to read about!

Get the Facts First!

Don’t purchase any reptile until you have fully researched its housing, feeding, and care requirements—and know how big it will get!

CHAPTER 2

Why People Like Lizards

Lizards are extremely popular. Of all the reptiles, they are the ones that most appear to display some personality, and people respond to that. (Snake and turtle owners may not agree with me, of course!) I think lizards pack a lot of personality into their scaly little (and sometimes big) bodies. Why is this?

Bearded dragon

There are several reasons. I think part of it has to do with some lizards’ eyes, which look more human than those of some other reptiles. Another reason so many people like to keep lizards as pets is that they come in so many different body shapes and sizes. Lizards, in addition to having many interesting body types, can be very pretty. Let’s take a closer look.

Lizard Eyes

Let’s compare the eyes of snakes and lizards. Snakes’ eyes are often (not always) pretty dark, and you can’t always tell where they’re looking. Plus, they don’t have eyelids, so they can’t blink or even close their eyes when they’re sleeping. Instead of an eyelid, there is a clear scale (called a spectacle) that covers and protects a snake’s eye. This makes it look as if a snake’s eye is always open, and that “unblinking stare” makes snakes seem kind of alien. Maybe this is one reason some people get the heebie-jeebies when they’re around snakes (another being, of course, that snakes don’t have arms or legs).

Some lizards’ eyes look a little more like humans’. A healthy lizard’s eyes are bright and alert. There is usually a clearly visible pupil, often set against a pretty-colored iris, the colored part around the pupil that changes in size to control the amount of light entering the pupil. And many lizards have eyelids that can cover their eyes, so they can blink and close their eyes when sleeping. (Not all do; the eyes of some lizards, including some geckos, are like the eyes of snakes—the eyeballs are covered by spectacles instead of eyelids.) Since you can often tell what a lizard is looking at, it sometimes seems that you know what it’s thinking. (“Hey, it’s looking at that cricket. I think it’s going to go for it!”) Plus, sometimes you’ll notice that your lizard is looking at you.

Uroplatus gecko

Looking Lizards in the Eye

The more types of lizards you learn about, the more variety you will see in their behaviors and physical characteristics. Particularly interesting are the different colors and patterns of lizard eyes. Lizards that are mostly active at night typically have slit pupils (like a cat’s). This type of pupil can open widely to allow the lizards to see better when it’s dark. Lizards that are mostly active during the day usually have round pupils (like a human’s) that concentrate light better during daylight. Take a look at the fascinating examples of lizard eyes below:

1. The eye pattern of this Australian spiny-tailed gecko is dizzying.

2. This Kalahari ground gecko has a slit pupil that opens widely at night to let in light.

3. Shown here is a banded tree anole, a cousin of the green anole you’ll read about later.

4. Chameleon eyeballs are held by moveable bulges that allow these lizards to look in two directions at once!

Lizard Shapes

Lizards offer a lot of variety when it comes to the shape of their bodies. There are lizards with pointy spines all over their tails and cones on top of their heads. There’s even one that looks like a pinecone. Some call it the pinecone lizard, but its real name is shingleback skink. Maybe you’d like to call it by its scientific Latin name, Trachydosaurus rugosus (pronounced track-ee-doh-SAURUS roo-GO-sus). Take a look at the box on page 16 to find out more about the shapes of lizard bodies.

Lizards come in many different sizes, too. In Madagascar, an island off the coast of Africa, there are tiny chameleons that are only a couple of inches (about 5 centimeters) long. Meanwhile, if you were to take a boat to Komodo Island, in Indonesia, you might chance upon the Komodo monitor. This is one big lizard—the world’s largest—and it can grow to be 10 feet (3 meters) long and weigh about 150 pounds (68 kilograms). A bite from this lizard, also known as the Komodo drag-on, is bad news for goats, a favorite meal. The saliva of these lizards has so many bacteria that it acts like a poison. A goat bitten by a Komodo monitor wanders off and soon dies from the bite. The lizard, meanwhile, follows the goat’s scent and eventually catches up to its meal.

We may look really different, but we’re all 100% lizard.

Blue-tongued skink

As you can see, lizards come in all kinds of shapes and sizes, and some are stranger than others. This is one reason they fascinate people.

A Lizard’s Other Name

All living things, including lizards, are known by both common names (such as bearded dragon) and scientific names (in the case of the bearded dragon, Pogona vitticeps). Taxonomy is the science used to place animals and plants into categories. Taxonomy, with its use of scientific names, is a very complicated subject, but I’ll give you the basics.

Scientific names are typically in Latin, and sometimes they originate from the Greek. Pogona vitticeps comes from the Greek word pogon, which means beard. Scientific names usually describe the animal.

The two words that make up an animal’s Latin name are the genus (first word) and species (second word). The word Pogona is the genus name and the word vitticeps is the species name. There can be other species within a genus, too. For instance, there’s another bearded dragon named Pogona barbatus.

Did you know that you are a Homo sapien? Roughly translated, that means human being. Homo is Latin for man and sapien is Latin for intelligent. So Homo sapien means intelligent man.

Often, animals are named after the people who discover them, and a person’s name may be made a part of an animal’s scientific name. I know a man named Karl-Heinz Switak. One day, he found a gecko that turned out to be a new species, and later it was named after him: Coleonyx switaki.

Your common name most likely means something, too. For instance, my name is Russ, which is short for Russell, which means “red head.” Can you guess what color my hair is?

Types of Toes

Lizard feet come in all shapes and sizes. Some geckos, for instance, have paddle-shaped toes that allow them to walk up walls. Chameleons and other tree-dwelling lizards have thick, curled, fingerlike feet that help them grasp branches. Take a look at these funny-looking feet:

The green anole has long toes with thin claws that help it walk along tree branches.

These are the toes of a basilisk, a lizard that can sprint over water without sinking.

A look at the underside of a tokay gecko’s foot shows us its padded toes.

Chameleon toes grip branches to steady these lizards in the trees.

Odd Bodies

When looking at the many types of lizards living today, the body parts of lizards vary greatly in size, shape, and function. Consider the differences of the following physical characteristics:

• Eyes: The eyeballs of a chameleon are inside bizarre cone-shaped appendages—think of them as eyeball holders—that stick out from its head. These can swivel around separately from each other, allowing the chameleon’s right eye to look in a different direction than its left eye. One can even look forward while the other looks backward.

•