Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Heya everyone!

I am currently looking into buying a tegu. I would prefer one that has a gentler sense. I have heard that blue tegus and black and white seem to be the best choices for one like me? I am a herp novice, owning two sulcuta tortoises and about a year ago I owned a bearded dragon(died from unknown cause, took to vet about 4 times and he took the dragon for a week for research and still came up blank on why she would not eat, had to force feed for about two weeks. Was horrible). I also have some experience with leopard geckos. I was hoping to get a blue tegu because I read that they were the most docile of all. My main questions are, what kind of qualities do tegus have? Which are the most docile and are temperate of me messing up occasionally? How many square feet will an adult need?

Thanks so much for all the help.

Sincerely,
Levi

I might be slightly bias I LOVE BLUE TEGUS... um ya. I have amale blue tegu and he's one of the best pets i've ever had. I'd rank a tegu up there with a cat when it comes to compaionship. Some really like humans and some will tolerate people. My blue likes to chill with me and his become my lap lizard. Needless to say there is alot of variation between tegu speices and individual tegus. Arg B&W are also really friendly and are often called dog tame, i've seen a few that actully are clicker trained. If you want to get more insight on the personality of tegus check out wither Tegutalk.com or Thetegu.com both are great resorces and almost everyone on there has a tegu or is wanting one and people post pictures and stories all the time.

As for size this can be a limiting factor to most people. A blue adult will need a min of 6x2 while a B&W will need 8X4. Now people do need them in smaller and then allow them to free roam, but still i think bigger is better, course i'm still working on getting a bigger cage.

So ya check out those sights or post more questions, also i should add that B&Ws are easier to find and tend to calm down faster then blues most of the time.

Good Luck!!!