Hey again guys this is my second post and was wanting to ask for a list of a few semi or mostly aquatic lizards for my up coming paludarium. Some easier species would be most preferred
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I’m sorry, but what you’re looking for doesn’t really exist. All semi aquatic/aquatic lizards in the pet trade are either big/require a lot of space, incredibly skittish, mostly wild caught, hard to keep alive, incredibly expensive, or a combination of all of those. No semi aquatic species as of now can really be considered “easy”. Potentially bornean earless monitors as they’re captive bred more may become easier and more popular, but as of now they’re almost all wild caught (which you should really not be buying, the wild bornean earless monitor population is under a lot of stress right now), they’re hard to keep alive, and you’ll pretty much never see them. Unless there’s some species I’ve never heard of or I’m not thinking about, I’m sorry to say that you’re not gonna find what you’re looking for. If someone knows more about this than I do, please do correct me, I would love to learn that there was a lizard out there like this. I think maybe I’ve heard something about some sorta skink from Madagascar before, but I’m pretty sure that species was also all wild caught and hard to get established and bad for handling.
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Oh hey, I just realized you’re the same guy I helped with the gargoyle gecko. Sorry, wish I could help you here too. If you want an interesting paludarium with reptiles, perhaps you could consider keeping a species that’ll stay in the climbing section instead of in the water? Like day geckos or mourning geckos or mountain horned dragons? You could also keep a small turtle like a stinkpot, or a few garter snakes, if you’re okay with something other than a lizard.
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I’ve heard Crocodile skinks work pretty well but when I say small I mean it’ll fit in a 75 gallon tank, apologizes for not making that clear but then again thank you for responding to all my messages. I really appreciate it.
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I’m pretty sure red eyed crocodile skinks fit that bill of skittish and mostly wild caught and hard to keep well. I could be totally wrong though, things may have changed since I last payed attention to them. I wish I could tag someone who knows more, but I don’t know anyone on the forum who keeps crocodile skinks. I guess I’ll just tag people who keep a lot of species and have experience with rarer ones. @ballornothing @t_h_wyman
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Perhaps consult the croc skink breeders FB page?
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Thank you so much again man. I really appreciate it
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Couple small corrections here
So… There is a lot of bad information out there perpetuated by under/uninformed individuals. BEM were always considered to be a “rare species” because of how secretive they were and then the huge increase in palm oil plantations caused them to be “rediscovered” and people immediately became concerned about the harm to them the plantations would do, cue the ‘hue and cry’ over them. What got lost in all the noise were the fact that, as more land was developed, it became apparent that the species was not “rare” but was actually rather common, just highly secretive (something that is often the case when the organizations assigning these criteria are mostly non-native scientists doing a brief census trip and not actually talking to the natives in the region who always always have a much better idea of how common a species actually is). Now, this does not change the fact that habitat is being destroyed, but the thread level is not as great as some people would have you believe
As far as them being imported, most of the BEM we see in the hobby these days are actually CBB. Once they got into the hobby it became apparent that they are not that difficult to breed. I know of more than a few folks that have produced 30-40 offspring annually from just a couple breeding pairs
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Now, as far as suitable species… That is going to be a harder bill to fill. Short answer is that you have a ‘good, fast, cheap - pick two’ situation here. Anything cheap is going to be WC, that is just a sad fact of the hobby. Also, it is only cheap up front because you then end up spending a lot on testing and medication and treatment and all that. “Good” as a paludarium animal most often means “bad” as a display animal because evolution has hardwired them over millions of years to flee by hiding in the water from land-bound threats and flee into the undergrowth from water-borne threads. Basically they always want to run away. Size wise, you are kind of confined to small things because a caiman lizard or gold tegu are going to grow too large for a 75g tank
All that said, your best options are most likely to be BEMs, red- or white-eyed crocodile skinks, or Shinisaurus and you will just have to accept their downsides
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So what would be some good animals to fit in my paludarium?
Very interesting, thank you for teaching me, never knew that. That really is the problem with western zoology sometimes. I mean, think back to all the times a species has been thought to be extinct or non-existent by western science but known by the natives. Of course it’s not black and white and the natives of the places a species is native to aren’t infallible, saying they were would just be harmfully exoticizing them, and western zoology is by far the best tool we as humans have for understanding the animals of our world, but it’s really interesting to see what can happen when there’s a collaboration between hard science and indigenous knowledge.
Honestly, it depends on a lot of factors
The default go to is dart frogs or Mantella because they are so ubiquitous and have decades of history behind them for proper builds and care. If you are not in to darts there are other frogs species that can do well in similar setups: mossy tree frogs, lemur tree frogs, RETFs, milk frogs, White’s tree frogs, glass frogs, etc.
If you are not a frog person there is nothing that says you cannot do lizards and just not have semi-aquatic ones. I am sure some of the day and micro gecko species would thrive in a well designed setup. Heck, you could do a colony of mourning geckos or an anole species
If snakes are more your thing, I have seen some beautiful setups for ATBs, ETBs, and GTPs. You could also probably do SITBs. For something smaller and more terrestrial/semi-aquatic you could do garters, ribbon snakes, or Nerodia. If you wanted to go for something a bit more challenging there are tentacled snakes or file snakes (Acrochordus, not Limaformosa) however, those are almost always WC. If you are experienced with opisthoglyphous species Boiga dendrophila might be able to be done in a proper setup