Green anoles, which are famous as Anolis Carelinensis, make great reptile pets because of their unique characteristics. However, the lifespan of green anoles often baffles the owners, especially new ones.
Some of you may not know the complete details about the lifespan of green anoles. When you are a new pet owner, you must know the lifespan before you start tending.
In addition to that, you may not know the things that you should do to increase the lifespan of your anoles. The more the anoles live, the more they delight you.
This article has come up with the solution for new owners or would-be anoles owners. In other words, you will learn every minute details about the lifespan of green anoles.
In this way, you will easily undertake measures to increase the lifespan of green anoles. In addition to that, your misconception or bafflement regarding lifespan will get removed
This article has been reviewed by Dr. Dilber. Read more about our knowledge control process here.
Contents
How long do Green Anoles live in the wild?
In the wild, green anoles have different lifespans. Overall range lifespan is from 1 to 10 years, average lifespan 5.5 years, and typical lifespan 2 to 8 years.
In other words, the maximum lifespan in the wild is 10, and the minimum less than a year. In the wild, predation plays a key role in the lifespan.
Anoles often become prey to different predators in the wild. Thus, the lifespan is at stake there.
In addition to predation, the competition among male anoles does decide the green anoles’ lifespan.
The larger the anole, the greater the chances of a larger lifespan because the larger anoles keep themselves safe and secure.
Green Anole Lifespan in Captivity
As the lifespan of green anoles in the wild, lifespans in captivity vary. Overall range lifespan is 1.5 to 7, average lifespan 5.5, and typical lifespan 2 to 7 years.
In other words, the maximum lifespan in captivity is 7 years. Though very few anoles reach this age, they are outliers.
When green anoles are in captivity, their lifespan is dependent on proper care and environmental conditions.
In addition to proper care and conditions, good, healthy nutrition decides the lifespan of green anoles in captivity. In other words, these factors can increase the lifespan of green anoles.
How to Maximize Green Anole Lifespan
To maximize the lifespan of anoles, you need to maintain the environment of the enclosure according to the natural habitat and needs of anoles. You will have to focus on the temperature, diet, health conditions, humidity, and enclosure lighting.
Food is very important to increase lifespan. Without foods, anoles cannot survive longer.
To increase the lifespan of green anoles, you have to adopt the following measures and follow the guidelines.
Remember that these are instructions for green anoles being in your captivity.
Feed Green Anole the Right Foods
Read more: What do green anoles eat?
Insects
As anoles are insectivores, they will eat whatever is smaller than them. For healthy nutrition and a longer lifespan, you can make them eat the following insects.
- Crickets
- Mealworms
- Waxworms
- Silkworms
- Earthworms
- Phoenix worms
- Farm-raised Maggots
- Roaches
- Spiders
- Fruit flies
- Buffalo beetles
From the above list, roaches and crickets should be a regular diet for your green anoles. And all other insects should be the secondary meals, or you should use them while treating your anoles.
You can feed 2-3 crickets or roaches to your anoles after every other day if your anoles are adults.
Dietary supplements
There are insects that you can make your green anoles eat as supplements. These insects are wild-caught like grasshoppers and leafhoppers.
However, these wild insects can be too dangerous when they contain pesticides, herbicides, and other various chemicals. Thus, be careful while you are using such insects as a supplement.
That’s why it is recommended to use insects from a store that are free from any kind of pesticides, insecticides, and contaminations.
In addition to wild insects, you should dust green anoles foods with calcium powder and vitamins in the prescribed manner as a supplement. The recommended dusting of foods with calcium powder is 2-3 times a week and multivitamin with D3 once a week as a supplement.
Apart from these famous approaches, there is a concept of gut-loading. It is a process in which you feed the insects with fruits and vegetables for healthy purposes.
As there is a famous saying ‘you are what you eat’, so is true for anoles. If you provide veggies and fruits to crickets and roaches, they will become healthy.
As insects become healthy by eating these things, so will be anoles by eating these insects.
Vet comment: The combination of vegetables, fruits, and insects is necessary to keep the digestive system healthy by ensuring the adequate absorption of nutrients. These also help to boost the immune system of the green anoles.
Produce
You can make your green anoles eat veggies and fruit. The following is a list of fruits that will make your anoles healthy and robust.
- Grapes
- Honeydew Melon
- Blueberries
- Strawberries
- Apples
- Bananas
- Carrots
- Oranges
Since green anoles are insectivores, you should not regularly provide them with fruits and vegetables. What you can do is to use these things as a treat.
Food to Avoid – What You Should NOT Feed Green Anole
Various foods are unhealthy and toxic. Thus, your green anoles do not live long as they eat these foods
The following are a few foods that you should avoid.
- Insects that are bigger than green anoles
- Stink bugs
- Hornworms
- Millipedes
- Super-worms
- Kingworms
- Hard-bodied worms
- Wild insects having herbicides and pesticides
7 Factors that Can Shorten Green Anole Lifespan
Wrong Diet in Young Green Anole
The first and foremost cause that decreases the lifespan of your green anoles is the wrong diet. While you are tending the young anoles, you will be bombarding them with pinheads and fruit flies.
Along with foods, young anoles desperately need ultraviolet energy either from the sun or artificial lights. Thus, removing the natural light while anoles are eating can shorten their lives.
The variety of foods along with light can save your young anoles. For variety, you can opt for leaf-litter invertebrates, tiny moths, termites, sap beetles, flour beetle, meadow plankton, and other small insects.
Diet is the most important thing for green anoles to live a long and healthy life. Because green anoles can easily get metabolic diseases that occur due to an inappropriate diet or due to the deficiency of certain nutrients.
Diet is directly linked with the digestive system of green anoles and it indirectly affects all the vital systems of the anole body including the cardiovascular, skeletal, hormonal, and nervous systems. So, the food of green anoles should be nutritious, digestible, and non-toxic to the green anoles.
Impaction in Green Anole
Impaction is a very common disease in anoles. Impaction occurs due to the accumulation of non-digested food in the intestine. The non-digestible food becomes compact in the intestine and it becomes difficult for the green anoles to excrete this accumulated food.
When you make your anoles eat larger insects than their mouths, they tend to be the victim of impaction. You must be careful while feeding your anoles with insects.
In addition to that, you must be watchful while your green anoles are outside. In other words, check them out whether they are eating smaller or bigger insects.
As your anoles eat these larger insects, their digestive tracts get stuck. Thus, it can lead to death if you do not approach to vet.
You may wonder how can you recognize that your anole has become the victim of the impaction? The following are a few notable symptoms.
- Lack of appetite
- Lack of digestion
- Lethargy
- Bblue-bruised spot on the abdomen
- Anorexia
- Straining to defecate
Metabolic Bone Disease (MBD) in Green Anole
Metabolic diseases are diet-related disorders. They occur due to the disturbance of metabolism of certain nutrients that can be due to its deficiency or lack of ingredients required for their metabolism.
So, MBD can occur due to a deficiency of calcium in the diet or improper absorption from intestine. If the food has an improper ration of calcium-phosphorus ratio, phosphorus can affect the normal absorption of calcium from the intestine. calcium-phosphorus should be 2:1.
In other words, poor husbandry results in a lack of vitamin D3 or UVB along with a deficiency in calcium, which turns into MBD. This disease can be fatal if untreated.
Symptoms of MBD
- Lethargy and hesitant to do movement
- Great trouble while lifting the body from the ground
- Hindlimbs get paralyzed
- Appetite
- Anorexia
- Weight loss
- Weight gain
- Swollen and deform bones
- Weaknesses in Muscles
- Pathological breakages
- Tremors
Treating Metabolic Bone Disease
- Calcium Gluconate SC
- Oral Calcium Gluconate
- Full Access to Ultraviolet spectrum
- Calcium and Vitamin D supplements
- Calcium and Vitamin D injections if MBD is severe
- Oral supplements
- Hormone Calcitonin injections
- Fluid Therapy
- Splints when the bones have got broken
Preventing MBD in Green Anoles
- Ensuring the proper ratio of phosphorus in the food. Feed the vegetables and fruits that have a 2:1 calcium-phosphorus ratio.
- Proper husbandry and care
- Calcium and D supplement
- Proper care while anoles are young
- Gut-loading with a healthy diet
- Complete exposure to Ultraviolet spectrum
- Use of bulbs in a terrarium for UVB
Infections in Green Anole
Like other creatures, green anoles do catch infectious diseases. The following are a few common infections that green anoles catch.
Common Types of Green Anole Infections
Salmonella
You will find this disease in all types of reptiles. It is so contagious that it can infect human beings from reptiles.
Salmonella affects the mucosal layer of the intestine and damages the inner lining. It proliferates and multiplies in the epithelial cells and causes cell bursts.
Moth rot or stomatitis
Green anoles become the victims of moth rot infections. Puffiness or redness on their mouth or the availability of cheese-like cottage on teeth shows the signs of this disease.
Once the cottage tooth falls, the jaw will get infected. As a result, your anoles can die.
Respiratory infections
When your green anoles breathe open-mouth and there are nasal or glottal discharge and dyspnea, they are the victims of respiratory infections
Septicemia
Septicemia is a type of infection. It is also known as blood poisoning and is always caused by bacteria. In this infectious disease, green anoles have signs of trauma, localized infection, environmental stress, and parasitism.
Ulcerative or necrotic dermatitis
This disease is the result of an unhygienic environment with greater moisture and humidity. First, it causes small cutaneous erosions and then death if untreated.
Abscesses
Wounds developed after fighting, traumatic injuries, and poor husbandry lead to this disease. Reptiles with subcutaneous abscesses often have nodules or swellings.
Avoiding Infections
- Proper hygiene system
- Approach a vet for a full treatment
- A proper lighting system in the fencing
- A healthy diet and feeding management
- Modernize husbandry practices
Parasites in Green Anole
Like most other lizards, green anoles do have parasites. Remember that parasites are small insects or plants or anything that live inside the body of another animal.
In addition to living there, the parasites also get food. The following are a few parasites that live inside the green anoles. If you leave them as grow, these parasites can lead to lead of your anoles.
- Round Worms or Nematodes
- Tongue worms
- Helminth parasites
- Thorny-head worms
- Arthropoda
Vitamin Issues in Green Anole
Unfortunately, most insects that green anoles eat do not have vitamins. Green anoles have dire need of Vitamin D3.
Vitamin D3 can come through natural sunlight or UVB bulbs. When green anoles are in captivity, they receive less natural sunlight.
Vitamin issues or deficiency of vitamins weakens the immune system, nervous system, and skin or coat health of green anoles.
You can eliminate the vitamin issue in various ways. While you are feeding, you should dust the insects with the vitamin-mineral supplement, first. Then, you should provide direct sunlight for 12 hours or UVB bulbs.
Next, you should make your green anoles eat a honey-fruit-vitamin mixture that consists of avitron liquid, calcium D3-powdered vitamins, water, honey, and pureed apricot. Finally, choose the product that provides multivitamins to your green anoles.
Eyes Problems in Green Anole
Eye problems also occur due to the deficiency of vitamin A.
However, It is also due to congenital issues, fungal disease, parasitic and bacterial problems, and environmental reasons that have become common issues. When green anoles have eye issues, their eyes get swollen and closed.
Your anoles will also bleed in addition to swollen eyes. As a result, they cannot hunt and see properly.
If you find your anole eyes swollen and closed and they bleed, approach a qualified vet for help. If you leave them untreated, they will tend to die.
Wrapping Up
The lifespan of green anoles has been an important subject for all anole pet lovers or owners. Both captivity and wild-life show the same average lifespan of anoles with 5.5 years.
However, there are other lifespans like minimum, maximum, and normal that vary. In other words, lifespan in wild is more than that of captivity.
The reasons can be various like a natural habitat. However, with proper husbandry and diet, you can increase the lifespan of anoles in captivity.
Knowing the factors that shorten your anole lifespan is very important because they will help you manage better. In other words, you will arrange things according to the need of your anoles.
In this way, you will be able to increase the lifespan of your green anoles.