Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Diet and color. Can the color of a Beaded lizard be influinced by diet. I have expirimented some and found that I can intensify yellow in Spilotes using a rich carotin diet.

Hi,
Color in Helodermatidae(Gila Monsters & Beaded Lizards)are determined by genetics. Color can apear to change while shedding and growth but the final product comes from Mom & Dad. Heloderma eats only animal matter and is an oportunistic boom or bust feeder. So the answer to your question is no.
Enjoy,
HorridumAngeli

HorridumAngeli's Beaded Lizard Web Site

I work with Falcons. Gyr falcons from Alaska usualy have white or blue feet. A high vitamin diet mostly carotin turnes their feet yellow orange in some instances. I have taken washed out almost white Spilotes and from poor nutrition and turned them yellow and orange by suplimenting their diet with high vitamins as adults. I have beadeds some of your bloodlines from Steve Steward I have managed to influince color but in a way I didn't expect. They now have a Gila pink wash around the yellow!

I hear krylon spray paint is making some really neat colors these days. Have you tried using that to alter the colors?

My question was does diet affect color. That was the original question. The answer is yes. My thought is that captive animals miss out on some of the benefit that a wild diet allows hence quail eggs vs store bought eggs. I am not trying to alter color just trying to give the captive a diet rich in vitamins. Wild mice eat insects which are high in carotin. Thank you for the nice reply. I am new to this forum. I hope you are the only smartas*$% polluting this forum.

Since I work with Spilotes I will back up and explain my reasoning behind carotene. I had some light yellow animals come in as imports. The importer explained that he occasionally would see orange animals from the same area. I fed chicken chicks in the spring to get extra weight on the animals for breeding and noticed that these light yellow animals were getting orange highlights. (These were not gut loaded chicken chicks just normal chicks with yoke still in them). My hunch was that the orange animals were normal Spilotes that were raiding bird nests in the wild and getting more carotene in their diet. Wild insect eating birds would have a high carotene in their eggs and young. To test my theory I supplemented the chicks with carotene a naturally occurring vitamin. I was not even sure the Beaded I posted was that unusual since I do not have a large group. I just wanted some intelligent feedback.