Caring For Collared Lizards

Collared lizards, with their striking colors and active personalities, are captivating little reptiles that are becoming more common as pets. Their care requirements are relatively simple to meet, and they don’t require a huge amount of space. This care sheet gives a comprehensive guide for creating the best environment for your collared lizard, covering all aspects of husbandry from habitat setup and temperature control to proper diet, enrichment, and safe handling.

Fast Facts

• Scientific name: Crotaphytus collaris
• Native range: Central and Eastern United States, Northern Mexico
• Natural habitat: Arid and semi-arid environments with sparse vegetation and rocky ground
• Adult size: 20 to 38 centimeters (8 to 15 inches) including the tail
• Tank size: 40-gallon tank or larger
• Lifespan: 10-15 years
• Difficulty: Beginner

Source: Crotaphytus collaris, Animal Diversity Web

Fun Facts

• Collared lizards have the nickname “mountain boomers” in the state of Oklahoma, USA. The reason for this name is not well-known, but might be because people mistakenly believed that the lizards could emit a loud echoing sound. 
• These lizards are known for their ability to run on two legs. They can raise up to their hind legs to run at high speeds, and have been measured sprinting at 16 miles per hour.

Source: Collared Lizards by Melissa Kaplan

Physical Description

Collared lizards are medium sized lizards which reach lengths of up to 15 inches (males being larger than females). Their bodies are tan to green with many light spots and dark cross bands. They have a distinctive black collar that gives them their name and a whitish underbelly. Captive-bred collared lizards can be especially striking in appearance. Some individuals display bright orange, yellow, and even blues in their coloration.

Caring for Collared Lizards in Captivity

Collared lizards make excellent pets. With daily handling they can become very tame and quite friendly. They are extremely active, and fun to watch. They are often compared to bearded dragons in their care and in their temperament, but they don’t need such a large enclosure or as highly varied of a diet as beardies should have. So in many respects they are even easier than bearded dragons, but there are some nuances about caring for collared lizards that you need to know. I will explain all of that here.

Temperament

Even though collared lizards used to have a reputation for being jumpy and nippy, this has changed with successive generations of captive breeding. If you buy from a reputable breeder who takes good care of their animals, then you will likely get a very calm and friendly pet lizard. My own collared lizard clearly enjoys my presence and loves to sit on my shoulder or chest. It also likes to sit on a sunny windowsill and watch all that is going on outside.

Occasionally, an individual lizard can be shy when first attained and might respond to handling with a bite. This is not an issue with babies but a full-grown lizard could inflict some harm. Another thing to be aware of is that wild-caught collared lizards are sometimes still found in the pet trade. These do not make good captives. Wild lizards will likely bite you and try to run away from you, and they can run VERY fast.

My #1 tip is to make sure you are buying a captive-bred collared lizard and be patient in letting it get accustomed to you if necessary. Your effort will pay off and you will soon have a very personable little companion.

Housing Collared Lizards

A single adult collared lizard can live comfortably in a cage that is 36x18x16 inches, or the equivalent of a 40-gallon breeder tank. But remember that bigger is always better for an active species like a collared lizard. These guys love to run and jump around when they have the space. You and your lizard will get more enjoyment out of a larger enclosure if you are able to provide one.

For collared lizards, having a front-opening enclosure is far better than a tank that only opens from the top. There are few reasons for this. First, a front-opening cage is simpler for you to access, making things like feeding, cleaning, and handling easier. Second, collared lizards are the natural prey of birds, so they are instinctively afraid of objects moving over their heads. Even though your lizard will get used to you with time, you can make them most comfortable by accessing their enclosure from the side rather than from the top.

Keeping Multiple Collared Lizards Together

Hatchling and juvenile collared lizards can be kept with multiple individuals in the same enclosure, but they reach sexual maturity after about two years of age and then I recommend housing them separately. Adult females can be housed together if you provide plenty space and hiding places for each lizard. Adult males should never be housed with others, however. They are territorial and aggressive with other males, and can even be cannibalistic. Males can become aggressive toward females as well, so it’s best not to mix them unless you are trying to breed and are keeping a close eye on them.

Temperature

Collared lizards are diurnal, meaning they are primarily active during the day, and they are naturally fast-moving lizards with a high metabolism. As such, they require warm basking temperatures and UVB light. They also need a thermal gradient, with one end of the enclosure heated and the other left at room temperature. Try to achieve a setup with the following conditions:

• Daytime – Maintain a daytime temperature of at least 75º F on the cool end of the enclosure, and of about 95º F on the warm end.
• Basking – Provide a basking spot lamp to create a basking surface temperature of 105-115º F, and an air temperature of about 100º F
• Night – Maintain a nighttime temperature between 60-75º F (use a ceramic heat emitter if necessary).

Humidity

Collared lizards are often labeled as desert dwellers, but most of their natural range is actually a temperate continental climate where there is ambient humidity for much of the year. That’s why your collared lizard will benefit from a moderate level of humidity — between 35 and 50% — in their enclosure. I recommend simply misting the cage each morning. This mimics a morning dew in their natural environment. If you live in a very dry climate then you may want to spritz the cage twice per day, but collared lizards are generally tolerant of humidity and temperature fluctuations so you don’t need to stress too much about this.

Lighting

Use a daytime UVA/UVB fluorescent bulb for approximately 12 hours of light per day. UVB is necessary for diurnal reptiles to metabolize calcium and other nutrients. You will likely need to use two lamps to provide the UVB and the heat that your collared lizard requires.

I recommend a lighting setup like the Zoo Med Desert UVB & Heat Lighting Dual Kit that is compact and easy to use with most types of enclosures. This particular product comes with two bulbs, a 13W compact fluorescent for UVB and a 75W incandescent for light and heat. This combo might be just perfect for your enclosure, however if you find that the basking spot doesn’t get warm enough then you might need to upgrade to a 100W spot lamp.

Cage Furniture and Decor

Include a basking area close to the heat source. This may be a large branch, flat rock, or both. Also add a wood or rock hiding place in the cool area of the home. Both the basking platform and the hide box are a must. The hide gives your lizards a place to feel secure and a place to sleep, and a platform beneath the basking spot helps to ensure your lizard gets the right amount of heat for proper digestion and other basic functions.

Besides these items, you can decorate the cage however you like with branches, stones, or perhaps even live plants. Your lizard will enjoy climbing and jumping among any cage decorations that you can provide.

Substrate

Collared lizards are found in a variety of habitats in the wild, but most commonly they live in dry places with sandy soils. In captivity they do best with a loose substrate that mimics this environment and allows for burrowing. In my experience, collared lizards vary individually on whether they prefer to burrow or not, but it’s best to give them the option of burrowing so that they can better regulate their body temperature.

The following substrates are good for collared lizards, and you may choose to mix any of these to achieve a more naturalistic or custom look:

• Zoo Med ReptiSand
• Zoo Med ReptiSoil
• Exo Terra Desert Sand
• Play sand

In addition to the loose bedding I recommend placing some flat rocks or wood to provide different surfaces within the enclosure. This will make a more natural and inviting look to your setup and will benefit you lizard by giving various options for thermoregulation and for enrichment. A final tip is to make sure you clean out waste and leftover food daily, but this is easy to accomplish with a loose substrate like sand or soil.

Collared Lizard Diet

Collared lizards are mainly insectivores, but they are technically omnivorous. In the wild they are known to eat other prey like rodents and smaller lizards occasionally, and also eat small amounts of plant matter. A captive diet for collared lizards should therefore be quite varied, but it can consist primarily of crickets with multivitamin and calcium supplements.

Insects

Give your adult Collareds 5-6 crickets daily and dust the crickets with supplement 2-3 times a week. For a treat or just something different, you can purchase different kinds of feeder insects occasionally. Mealworms, superworms, waxworms, butterworms, roaches, small spiders, moths and grasshoppers are all great insects to feed to these guys. 

Your lizard should readily accept just about any kind of bug prey, and might really enjoy something like a grasshopper to chase around and eat. Some people even give feeder anoles or pinky mice to their collared lizards every once in a while, but this is not necessary. Just make sure you dust their prey with calcium supplement and multivitamin supplement regularly for complete nutrition.

If you are feeding live prey like crickets, grasshoppers, or beetles that move around a lot, make sure you catch and remove uneaten bugs before nighttime. That’s because the insects might nibble on your sleeping lizard, causing agitation and possibly injury. Alternatively, you can feed your lizard in a separate container if you want, then return them to their cricket free tank. This is a good strategy for any lizard that proves to be a reluctant or slow eater, but most of the time they will gobble down their prey with no complications.

Greens

Most, but not all, collared lizards enjoy eating fresh greens in my experience. You should offer greens to your lizards once per week, and if they won’t eat them then try a different kind of vegetable next time. Maybe you will find that your lizard simply has no appetite for salad, but most likely you will be able to find something that they like.

Options include spinach, collard greens, bok choy, kale, spring mix, carrots, dandelion flowers or greens, hibiscus flowers or leaves, and shredded squash. You can also give fruits as a treat less than one time per week. Try chopped pieces of apple, berries, papaya, or fig.

Supplements and Gut Loading

It is recommended that you gutload all your insects to make sure that your lizard can get all the nutritional value it needs from its food. You can buy commercially sold items for gutloading, or  you can DIY with a variety of scraps like cat food/dog food, fish food, cereals, oatmeal, fruit slices, carrots, raw potato, etc.

Whether or not you gutload your feeder insects, you should still provide calcium supplement, and ideally multivitamin supplement as well to promote optimal health and color for your lizard. See our blog about dusting feeder insects for more information.

For hatchling and juvenile collared lizards, you should dust their prey with every feeding. For fully grown adults, you can limit dusting to 2-3 times per week, provided they are getting an adequate variety of nutritious feeder bugs and greens in their diet.

Water

Fresh water should always be available even if you do not witness your lizard actively drinking. Provide a small, shallow water dish that you keep full and clean. Collared lizards do not always drink standing water, but I have witnessed mine drink from his water bowl on several occasions. They are most likely to lap water droplets from objects after a spray, so this is another reason that frequent misting is beneficial besides keeping up the humidity.