Just adding this here to help folks better understand what we mean when we classify a reptile under a “keeper difficulty”(Begginer/Intermediate/Difficult). I openly welcome anyone who has the proper experience to add any notes (or corrections) in the comments! (See disclosure for details)
-DISCLOSURE-
I made this as a very basic list to put a little more explanation to something that a lot of people just simply slap onto a species as a label without going further into what they mean when they make these labels.
I am well aware that every individual of a species will vary in their needs and care. Some individuals of a beginner species may be difficult to keep and some difficult species will have individuals that are an absolute breeze to care for. Then there are individuals of species that may be special needs and that is in its entirely own category since each special needs individual will have different care requirements in mind. This guide is just a very broad generalization of these “difficulty tiers” to help people better understand what they may mean. Please understand this while reading this post.
Keeper Difficulty: Beginner.
•Species listed under this difficulty require simple care standards that can be easily achieved. They typically have mild temperature requirements that are reached with heating elements provided widespread across pet supply stores (Please, please do your research before buying heating elements as they can potentially cause harm if they are poorly manufactured!). They have no troubles being fed and will typically eat at every meal readily, their diet is also easily accessible and simple. Their temperament usually will remain calm their whole lives or in a majority of situations, they can be handled easily and are not prone to trying to flee; bites will be minimal and relatively painless. Their size will remain within a reasonable range (small-medium) that will allow for ease of handling, transporting, and husbandry. Beginner species are typically very common in the reptile trade and has a plethora of information to read on.
Keeper Difficulty: Intermediate.
•Species listed under this difficulty require advanced knowledge and experience to achieve proper care. Responsible keepers typically will not own an intermediate species until they have had experience with another less difficult one. They have temperature requirements that may exceed what a beginner species would (but not always) and will require more setup for their husbandry. Their diet may be more challenging to access or they may be difficult to start on feed, they may also refuse meals when offered. The diet they require may also be much wider in diversity. Their temperament will vary from calm to extremely defensive, however they can be worked with to a point that they are no longer this way. Expect to recieve bites that may be painful or require mild treatment, as well as any other ways the species may defend itself. Their size may vary from tiny-large making handling, transporting, and enclosure sizing a bit of a challenge. Information on species that are intermediate may still be widespread but they probably wont be as commonly kept as beginner species are.
Keeper Difficulty: Difficult
•Species listed as difficult are only for the most experienced keepers. Their care is very specific and needs to be precise in order to keep the species healthy. Temperature requirements may need to be on point with specialized tools to get the job done or else the species wont thrive. They may require a diet that is specific to one thing only that is very hard to obtain, or there are few sources that provide it. They may have to be assisted at feeding to get them to start eating on their own and it may be dangerous to do this, difficult species may also refuse to eat for extended periods of time. Their temperament will usually never allow for handling without risk of injury, their handling will be difficult and exerting. Bites may be serious, cause hospitalization, or be outright fatal in certain cases. Bites may be painful and may have long-lasting consequences. Their size will vary but is usually not the biggest concern that comes with difficult species unless you consider housing- which they may need a lot of space to live healthily. Information on difficult species may be very sparse and only a select few keepers may own one.
Again I greatly encourage any tips and/or corrections in the comments to add to this post! Please do so with quotes to help me and others understand what you’ll be referring to.
I didn’t include example species in this post because of the point that individuals will vary between eachother, sometimes greatly. I also didn’t include pricing because this can be a very broad topic in terms of care requirements.