How to Care for a Green Anole

Select a wood, glass or mesh vivarium at least 12 inches wide by 12 inches deep by 24 inches high for one or two reptiles. Green anoles are more arboreal than terrestrial, so a tall enclosure is essential for natural climbing and basking behavior. The vivarium must also have adequate ventilation because anoles require a humid environment. Insufficient airflow and permanently damp substrate lead to mold and the potential for respiratory diseases.

Place a heat mat under the outside of a glass vivarium or on the floor of a mesh or wood vivarium. Fix a basking spotlight at one end of the habitat and cover the spotlight with a heater guard to prevent burns. Pass the cords out through a ventilation hole and plug the mat and basking light into a reptile thermostat. Set the thermostat to maintain an ambient temperature of 75 to 85 degrees Fahrenheit during the day and an overnight drop to 70 degrees. Provide an ultraviolet light source with a combined UVB UVA T8 strip light or compact bulb.

Cover the base of the vivarium with a moisture-retaining substrate such as orchid bark, sterile soil, sphagnum moss or a combination of all three. Decorate the vivarium with branches and plants to create variety of climbing areas and different basking heights near the spotlight. Stick a thermometer at each end of the vivarium and a hygrometer on the back wall in places that you can clearly see.

Spray the substrate, plants and vivarium walls with dechlorinated water at least twice a day to create a humid atmosphere. Check the hygrometer regularly and keep humidity between 60 and 70 percent. Increase or decrease the frequency of misting sessions to maintain the correct moisture level.

Feed your green anole a selection of insects every day. Dust the live food with a reptile vitamin supplement twice a week and calcium once a week. Mealworms are adequate as a staple food, but anoles enjoy a varied diet, so offer alternate meals of crickets, locusts and wax worms. Green anoles have a voracious appetite and will attempt to eat unsuitably large prey if it is available. As a rough guide, do not feed adults anything larger than a standard- size mealworm. Hatchlings and juveniles can safely eat insects no bigger than half their head size.

Place a small water dish inside the vivarium. Green anoles drink from leaves and branches when you mist their habitat, but some may take water from a dish. If you find your anole is not interested in the water dish after a week or two, you can remove it.

Handle your green anole as little as possible in order to avoid stressing it, and never grab it by the tail. An anole possesses a defense mechanism called autotomy, the ability to spontaneously sever its tail. It does grow back eventually, but the experience is very stressful for your pet, and the new tail may develop with deformities. Green anoles are skittish and move rapidly, so they are not great candidates if you want a hand-tame lizard.