Just found a lizard in my backyard

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Matt724

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Jan 19, 2009
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Los Angeles, CA
I found a small garden lizard in one of the tubs i use for my pond outside floating in small layer of rain water. It must have slipped in during the rain last night. I decided to take an old 20H that I had just laying around and bring it outside on a table. I released the lizard in there, and added a small flowerpot that I had just laying around by my mom's garden and that's about it. From a quick look it seems to be a common side-blotched lizard, but I'm not sure. If someone could ID it for me that'd be great. I don't plan on keeping it longterm, but I don't know, I just kept it just to be interested. I don't feel like registering for a whole new website so i decided to just keep it local. Depending on how i feel, i might keep it, add some leftover playsand and rock structures that I have from my collection of miscellaneous fish resources. Maybe some dead branches if I can find any outside. If I do keep it, it would remain outside. I'd put wire mesh over the top so birds can't come down and rain hell, and when it rains, I'll just cover it in tin foil or something. I'm definitely not spending any money on heat lamps or UV lights since i figured it lives outside anyways, so it must find a way to survive. Anyways here's a picture of what i'm dealing with:

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It's a Sceloporus (fence lizard or swift), not a side-blotched lizard. I don't know which species it is. Be sure to put the tank where it stays shaded most of the time; an aquarium in the sun can get lethally hot.
 
why not just let it go, if you want a pet lizard do it the right way and get a captive bred and born one
 
It looks like a juvenile Western Fence Lizard.
 
I know in the south..we call them pine Lizards. I would let this guy go since you are not really into all the work it takes to maintain one properly.
 
Cool Fence Lizard. But if you think that's a suitable habitat you should definetaly just let it go. You can't just keep an animal "short term" and let it go. It doesn't work like that. I'd spray the dust off it and release it.
 
latshki;5021040; said:
why not just let it go, if you want a pet lizard do it the right way and get a captive bred and born one


I probably got the first 20 pets from the wild. Go ahead and keep him. Better than letting him get mulched in a mower or run over by a car or chewed on by a dog. Keep him for a bit and see if you like having him if not then you can release him no harm done.
 
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