Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I found this little lizard in a pet store in New Bern, NC. It was labeled as a "Fire Swift". I've never heard of that and apparently neither has the internet.. either way, I bought it but when I tried to do some research on the internet for the lizard, I found nothing under the name Fire Swift... It has black and white stripes on its face, green back legs, reddish belly and tail, faint yellow spots down side, raised scales, and spines from its neck to tail. This lizard likes to bury its head in the sand a lot and is very fast too. It looks like a spiny lizard with different coloration. It's about 5 inches head to tail. Loves mealworms and will eat crickets. I'll post a picture as soon as I can. If anyone has any ideas, let me know! Thank you!!

Looks like something from the genus Leiocephalus, or the curly-tailed lizards.

Maybe Leiocephalus personatus, aka jeweled curly tail or masked curly tail?

I think the general care for these are relatively dry, sand and rocks, lots of light, high temps in the 90s, and don't let it get too cold at night (70s). And they eat bugs.

Maybe a 20 gallon long tank or larger for one specimen.

Wow that does look just like him. Thank you so much! I really appreciate your help. Do you think I could move up to a 55 gallon instead or is that going to be too hard to heat?

>>Wow that does look just like him. Thank you so much! I really appreciate your help. Do you think I could move up to a 55 gallon instead or is that going to be too hard to heat?

bigger is better (up to a point).

The goal with any enclosure is to create different zones.

Direct a heat lamp at a pile of rocks to create a hot spot of about 95. The area around that will be in the 80s, and the rest of the tank will be closer to room temperature. This way the lizard can warm up and cool down by moving around the tank. This is actually easier to do in a larger tank. You could also include plants and branches into the tank with the extra space.