The green iguana is one of the most famous lizards, and is even the first lizard many people recognize. Precisely because they are so well-known, when you want to keep a lizard, if you search a bunch of pictures of green hyenas on the Internet, you will naturally think that green hyenas are "lizards that can be kept." But in fact, they are by no means the most suitable pet lizards to keep at home.

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"Don't green hyenas be raised casually abroad?"

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hhhhh, this is a huge misunderstanding


Looking around the world, except for tropical countries and the United States, green iguanas have never been mainstream pets in other countries.


Tropical countries, such as Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, have natural light and heat conditions and can afford to raise them at a very low cost.


The United States, the country that favors green iguanas, has a vast land and sparsely populated areas and low housing prices. The per capita residential area alone is the envy of others. In addition, there are large areas in the United States with very good light and heat conditions, and they cannot be raised in the house. You can just build a cage in the garden to raise them.

So here’s the question – do you have a garden?






We are different from the United States, which praises the green hyena. In the densely populated east, the main area of the mainland market in our country, not everyone lives in a big house with a big garden. Looking across the country, many areas do not have the bright sunshine and abundant moisture of Southeast Asia. There are also European countries with colder climates, all of which are dominated by small species. The big lizard continental tortoise is not kept by that many people at all.


Even if the environment is suitable, can we raise it responsibly to the end? Take a look at Taiwan. It opened up very early, but there are also a lot of people abandoning and escaping! No one with a conscience will ignore this ecological impact. I hope everyone will keep this lesson in mind - even if green iguanas are allowed to be kept privately, they must be fully prepared before raising them.


All places in my country suitable for green iguanas to live in the wild are rich in native species. Don't let green iguanas become the next "stray cat"!

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If the green iguana can't be raised, then the green crested lizard will be fine, right?


The green double-crested lizard entered the domestic market very early and is one of the common non-conservation lizards. As early as 2011, a businessman I knew in the same city had already started breeding at home. That pair of parents left a deep impression on me: they were kept in a box about 80x30x30cm, and they would run around when they saw people. The sound of their claws and tails scraping in the box and their heads hitting the PVC backboard made me I still remember it.


In the end, the pair of lizards lived less than 4 years. Although he has been bred several times, I cannot say that his owner raised him well.

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Although the Green Double-crested iguana is much smaller than the green iguana, due to its sensitive personality, panic when encountering people, and the generally substandard breeding environment, it is difficult for most captive Green Double-crested animals to live to their natural life expectancy. Finally, he died in a small box with a festering face.

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For Green Double Crown, the biggest challenge is also the size of the environment. Ingo Kober, who has more than 20 years of experience in raising and breeding double-crested birds in Germany, said that the depth of the green double-crested breeding environment should be no less than 80cm to give them enough room to retreat; the length and height should also preferably exceed 150cm. Putting aside food, humidity, water and abundance, if you don’t even have 80cm of space, then the Green Double Crown may not be suitable for you.

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Is that green and rusty iguana gone?


Yes, and they just appeared in my video


It is the green cone-headed lizard (Laemanctus longipes) and the saw-toothed cone-headed lizard (Laemanctus serratus)


The former appeared in "Overnight at the Landau Reptile Zoo", and the latter appeared in "Frankfurt Zoo Episode 4 Part 2"

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General biological information


Green conure-headed lizards and saw-toothed conure-headed lizards are both members of the order Squamates - suborder Iguana - family Corytophanidae - genus Laemanctus. The entire conehead family is native to Central America. The Green Conehead lives in southern Mexico - Nicaragua; the Sawtooth Conehead is found in the Yucatan Peninsula in southern Mexico and in the tropical rain forests around the city of Veracruz. There are four species in this genus, and these two are definitely the most famous. Because the similarities between these two species are very high, this article reviews them together.


The length of adult green cone-headed anus is only about 13cm, but their total length can reach 70cm! So at first glance, they appear to have "tails from the neck down." Their slender legs and toes allow them to cling to branches and leaves, and their different shades of green allow them to blend into the trees.


Although they are rainforest species, they are sometimes found in dense scrub areas. But regardless of the type of vegetation, they are strictly arboreal species and generally rarely spend time on the ground except for laying eggs and eating the ultimate food.

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bold little man


The green double crest is so much smaller than the green hyena that it is easy to "explode", so wouldn't the green cone head, which is smaller than the double crest, be more timid?


The truth is just the "opposite". Compared with the double crowns who catapult and take off when they see anyone, the coneheads are much calmer. Many owners said that green conical heads do not run away from people, and they seem to adapt to the environment faster than green double-crested ones. But why is this "opposite" in quotation marks?


Because we still don't know whether its "calmness" in the face of humans is really "big-hearted" or whether it is silently enduring pressure. So I suggest: Even if your new cone head doesn’t seem to be afraid of you, don’t rush to get started. When it is willing to take the initiative to approach you for food, it is not too late to proceed to the next step of interactive training.


This relatively calm personality has also become the advantage of the coneheads. Even though they are both under pressure, compared with "ejection leap", "sitting still" at least avoids a lot of trauma risks. Because trauma not only aggravates stress, but decreased immunity during stress can also delay healing. Avoiding direct contact in the early stage is beneficial to animals adapting to the new environment.

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A house with two crowns? Now it's back to Cone Head


If you aim to raise green double crowns and arrange an environment of about 90x40x90cm, then - congratulations, this size is okay for raising conical crowns. If you have sufficient conditions, you can add 30cm to the length, width and height.


Is a bigger environment better? Not necessarily. If the base temperature of your home is low, an environment that is too high (more than 120cm) will make the temperature difference between the upper and lower floors too large. Although there is no big problem in raising them, it is a bit cold if you want their eggs to hatch naturally in the box.

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The temperature of the entire environment can be controlled at 28-35°C, and the sun point can reach a maximum of 45°C. Use a 10.0 T5 lamp to provide a wide range of UVB (because the environment is high, so the radiation needs to be stronger), and then use a 75-150W solar lamp to create hot areas and strong UVB areas. If you have a lot of plants in your environment, then using some high-brightness plant lights for lighting will make their vision clearer during the day.


The humidity aspect is very similar to the double crown, which is useful in maintaining ambient humidity and providing a large water area. If your area is very dry, use soil with a thickness of more than 5cm and good moisture retention. Coconut palm can provide a relatively stable humidity zone for the environment (60-80%). Ventilation is also crucial. If the top of the box If it is a full network coverage, that would be great.


Remember: if it dries too quickly, don’t just spray when pouring water, you can pour water as you would for growing flowers! Only half of the environment is saturated with water at a time, and the water vapor can be slowly released. But remember not to pour too much. If water accumulates in the soil, it is likely to breed bacteria and toxic gases, which will also cause great damage to animals.

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What to eat?


Coneheads are not aggressive in their eating behavior, but rather calm, waiting for prey to come to them. They will only attack if they encounter a particularly delicious insect. Adults of common insects can be mixed and matched as food, such as various crickets, small locusts, moths, flies, etc. Mealworms should only be used as complementary food; crickets are best fed in large escape-proof food bowls, as extra crickets will hide in dark places and the cone may never be able to catch them.


Multivitamin powder and calcium powder are also indispensable. However, whether calcium powder should contain vitamin D depends on the actual lighting configuration in breeding. If you can configure the lamps as above, you can consider not containing D3 calcium powder, or only occasionally consuming low-concentration D3 (approximately 10,000IU/pound) calcium powder.


The larval coneheads are more active and can even jump into the air to catch flying insects. This behavior makes me think, if they can catch flying insects, will their naked eye refresh rate be higher than that of humans? Will conventional lamps cause flicker to them? This needs to be verified by subsequent research.

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special function


Generally speaking, a few weeks after the mating season ends in late spring, the female conehead will find soil with the right depth (about 15cm) and the right moisture to lay her eggs. There are 5-8 eggs in each litter, but they can be born 2-3 times throughout the season. The sex of coneheads is also affected by the incubation temperature. When the incubation temperature is 28.5°C, the sex ratio is 1:2-1:3 (1 is male); when the temperature is increased to 29.5°C, the sex is more balanced.


Although the hatching method is similar to that of many rainforest iguanas, they have a very special ability-parthenogenesis.


Especially the common green cone-headed lizard (Laemanctus longipes). Due to its wide distribution, almost all the individuals exported from some production areas are even female! For example, the green conehead family we saw at Landau Reptile Zoo before is composed of all females. In addition, the success rate of parthenogenetic reproduction is very high. As long as there are no drastic changes in temperature and humidity, the hatching rate is even higher than that of heterosexual reproduction.

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Is this a common phenomenon in the green cone family, or is it a special phenomenon in a certain region? Or is this a separate subspecies? These questions show that there is still much we don’t know about them.


This is the case in the terrestrial world - we cannot understand all species, but what we can do is try our best to check relevant information/documents before raising them. "Like" does not mean "know how to raise". Only novices will confuse the boundaries between the two.

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Finally, I emphasize again


This article is not an advertisement for conure-headed lizards, nor does it intend to amway viewers to keep any pets. It just provides one more choice for viewers who have a clear understanding of their own conditions and have decided to raise a lizard. If conditions are insufficient and time is not available, "not raising" is a wise choice. But if you must keep one, please choose the species carefully based on your own conditions - you may really like green hyenas, but a green hyena may not be more suitable for you.