The Diet of Lizards

Whether there are a number of lizards around your home or garden, or you want to care for a lizard as a pet, it's important to know what lizards eat in order to keep the pets healthy or to keep them from ruining certain crops. Depending on where the lizards live and how large they are, their diet will include a variety of plants and animals.

  1. Types of Lizards

    • Lizards are the largest group of reptiles--there are more than 3,000 species around the world. The majority of lizards have to live in warm climates to survive and will eat food that is readily available in these climates. Geckos are the smallest type of lizard and are often found outdoors in states such as Florida and California. The largest of the lizards is the Komodo monitor, or Komodo dragon, which can grow to be longer than a full-grown human.

    Lizard Diet

    • Most lizards are herbivores, meaning they will eat only plants, including fruits and vegetables. The gecko will also eat small insects, particularly crickets. When keeping a gecko as a pet, it is best also to buy crickets from the pet store and feed them a special nutritional supplement before giving the crickets to the gecko. Larger lizards, such as the Komodo, are carnivores and will eat other lizards, as well as birds and other reptiles, such as snakes. Komodo dragons have also been known to eat anything that they can capture; larger varieties of the lizard have been known to eat wild pigs, deer and horses.

    Iguanas

    • Iguanas are a very popular lizard to keep as a pet because they are friendly and easy to care for. Some iguanas can grow to be quite large and should have room to move around freely, whether in the home or in an aquarium. Iguanas that live in the wild eat the mature flowers of plants as well as berries and other types of fruit. When keeping the lizard as a pet, it can be a challenge for the iguana to maintain the same diet because the plants have to be consumed at a certain temperature so that they are not toxic to the iguana. Domestic iguanas should eat lots of greens, including mustard greens, dandelion greens and collard greens.

    Gila Monster

    • The Gila monster is one of the only types of lizards that are poisonous--it delivers a venomous bite when attacked or threatened. Gila monsters live mostly in the southwestern United States and feed on lizard and bird eggs. These lizards also eat very small or newborn mammals. Once the lizard catches its food, it returns to is home, burrowed underneath the warm ground in the desert. The Gila monster often has brightly colored red and black scales, and the coloring serves to let other animals know that the lizard is poisonous.

    Skinks

    • Skinks are a somewhat rare type of lizard, with a long, cyndrical body, similar to a snake. Most skinks do not grow to be more than 8 inches long, but some species, such as the Solomon Islands skink, can be as long as 24 inches in adulthood. Skinks mainly feed on insects and eat spiders as well. Larger skinks are sometimes completely herbivorous and eat grass stems and a variety of fruits.