Reptile & Amphibian Forums

A guy in my neighborhood cleaned someones old house and they had an iguana, and this guy running around where the last owners didnt take them with . he knew i took care of chinese water dragons and iguanas so brought them to me, but i don't know what kind this guy is. he has strong legs and long claws so i knew hed like to climb. looks more like a warm climate guy, and has spiny scales on his tail. banded color.
pic included. Please let me know asap so i can take care of this guy right. thanks in advance mates

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sweet, thanks ^^ should be easy to take care of now that i know what he/she is. not much reading to be fond on it so far but appears to be much like the green in terms of habitat and feeding, exception being one page stated they were omniverous as opposed to herbivirous.

That's definitely a Ctenosaura, but without a clearer photograph of it, particularly the hind legs and tails, it would be hard pressed to say what species it exactly is. A lot of people jump to similis, it used to be more common, but over the last couple of years a lot of Ctenosaura have been available that are neither similis or pectinata, the larger and more common ones found in the pet trade.

They are quite omnivorous, will usually gleefully eat anything. They do not tame down much and are known for being quite aggressive. I have several species of them and they do get to know their caretaker well and will interact, but handling is a no-go with these guys. They tend to be quite flighty.

ill post more pics later, but when i did a search on that, the pics that came up were pretty close, and its tail does have those spines, although he is missing a bit of tail. second, going into 3rd day of having it, and he hasnt eaten, or to my knowledge drank any water. it stays in the same spot in the cage i rigged for it temporarily, and doesnt move. it basically climbed up on the side, as in the pic and when its dark i hear it moving about here and there. i tried feeding crickets, and some fresh lettuce, neither have made him blink. He did try to bite me when i pulled him from the box the guy brought them to me in, but if i put my hand in the cage and stoke the top of his head or his neck area, he doesnt react like hes upset. my water dragon freaks out if his cage is where she can see it, so i had to move it out of the room. the green iguana is sleeping in my moms room, she lets it roam freely, and it sleeps in her bed lol. When i received them, the guy had them both in the same small box, and they werent fighting but i dont know if they were pals or what. kinda afraid to put em together at this point, but cant help wonder if it maybe misses the other and thats why it isnt eating? mom says the green iggy is eating a little, and a little is better then nothing. not sure what to offer it to get it to want to eat. i feel bad for it cause its old caretaker abandoned it and left it, and id like to treat it super well to make up for it. ive heard that they can go up to 3 or 4 days without eating, but in my small experience all mine ate the first night or next day no problem.

Ctenosaura usually react strongly to insects. As for keeping them with other species, they are kind of odd. I've had no problems with them being in the same enclosure with other lizards (although in the wild they are reputed to eat other lizards) but they have to be watched with members of their own genus as they like to endlessly try asserting dominance and are territorial.

As to whether or not it is similis, in similis the base of the tail is roughly cylindrical, the dorsal crest is continuous from nape of the neck onto the tail (other species show a 'break' at the hip/tail junction), and the first ten whorls(rings) of spiny scales on the tail are separated from one another by two or more rows of smaller scales dorsally and laterally.