Care Guide -Oriental Long tail grass lizards

Can they be Cohabilitated?

Long tail lizards to marvolusly together, they are very social lizards displaying hand waves as gestures to communicate with each other, Males of the species will scrap with each other during the mating seasons of the year but dont do any hard to one another, its just important to monitor there stress levels during this time and interviene or upgrade the space they have to have territories to keep in. My suggestions on size of enclosures allow you to see a sensible ammount to keep per enclosure.

Also another bonus with this species is cross species cohabitation, Green anoles although not from the same geographical area share the same range of conditions required to keep long tails and both species being very placid make a great co habitation oppertunity. The only thing i would say is the first week monitor the behaviors of them , i've found that long tails are very inquisitive and will bother the anole in the first week, if the anole hasnt been established in captive bred conditions i would suggest waiting 6 months and then doing the cohab to allow them to be well established and have lower stress levels as wild caught specimins are never shipped well and they are either always dehydrated stressed and have weaker immune systems and the additional stress could topple them to death.

What size do they get? -

These lizards get to around 30cm long however 3/4 of there size is there Tail, So in reality there quite a small lizard, there tails are thin overall and taper down to a point.

When will i see them?

During the day, they are a diurnal lizard, they spend alot of time basking and chilling with one another with burst of activity throughout the day, you will generally see them chasing prey items or running around in general exploring the enclosure. They can be fast and can soon be out of focus of your eyes within milliseconds so always be vigilent when opening the enclosure especially if you have multiple.

Costs to keep

How much will it roughly cost you to keep an individual ackie monitor well including the setup and ongoing costs, this does not include unexpected vet bills or the rising cost of products over time.

Used for energy calculation : https://www.sust-it.net/energy-calculator.php

Distribution -

The distribution of these little guys are all over east asia as shown from the map below, all observations where made by users on Inaturalist. They range from china all the way over to the edge of india and then all the way down to indonisia.

Image captured from iNaturalist

All of the areas below are examples of the areas that these lizards inhabit, you can see that teh majority are grasslands and forested areas but also areas that overlap into human inhabited areas such as peoples gardens like you can see from the image in Suakarta, This area in particular had more grasslands than forest and a more dense ammount of human habitation and agriculture. Overall from my research they seem pretty adaptable to there enviroments in there distribution and can adapt to human activities, This is purly speculative from data on Inaturalist.

Rating - (Ease of care) - Fairly easy - ★★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆

Wild Caught issues (Majority) ★★

Not well documented ★

Escaping issues. ★

Overall these are not to hard to look after with the right enviroment however ther are a few trikier areas that need to be analysed when careing for them such as the issues that might happen from the majority of them being wild caught, You may find they have parasites or other health issues due to living in the wild and you dont know there age, they are not a long lived lizard 4-5 years so you might be unlucky and get one thats nearing the end of its life. There are a few other guides online that give you an overview of there care but the information is few and far between due to there uncommoness in the hobby. Also they are zippy when you have the enclosure open make sure you know where they are ive lost one before and found it a week later chilling in a bookcase. Just make sure to be vigilent at all times they do like to explore and any sudden movement will make a cascade of panic in the enclosure followed by potentially lost lizards.

Setup Requirements -

To start you will need an arborial enclosure in my case i created one from scratch 75cm tall by 45 cm wide by 50cm deep, the extra deepness allowed for a foam backing to be sprayed on the back. This size allows for each of the 4 i have to have there own areas to hide and the hight allows them to climb around like there in there natural enviroment. Below are some examples of terrariums and what limit of numbers you could put in them.

Substrate options and decor-

The substrate needs to be able to retain water to keep the humidity up, so the best type to use is either a coco fibre /top soil mix or a coco fibre/ peat mix. Once all is mixed in i would advise using live plants for decor and enrichment as the liards will use these as leverage to move around and get the most out of there setup.The more space you can fill teh better as they are excellent climbers and will utalise all the space that they can.

Heating and lighting-

These guys require a decent lighting system that you can vary throughout the year, i use a zoo med duel dome system and during the summer have one 25w bulb turned on and during the winter both of them on dependant on room temprature. A 10.0 UVB bulb is required, this spans over two thirds of the top of the cage, in there natural enviroment they have a high dose of UV throughout the year on average and at peaks can get to between 10-11 UVI

A basking spot is required to be around 34-38°C which can easly be achieved with a 25w bulb and arborial basking platforms and the temprature gradient in general outside the basking area should range between 24-30°C.

Nightime tempratures should have a natural drop down to 22C but from my research and looking at there ranges they can deal with lower tempratures througout the night. Which i will go into further below.

Here is a little be more research into there natural distribution enviroments, as you can see the chart there are various different places that i have chosen within there distribution, As you can see there is quite a bit of diffence between there enviroments, the tolerances that have to there tempratures varies. The Mawlaik area of the distribution expereiences tempratures as low as 10c. However if we think of the averages the picture looks a bit different between all the terratories during the winter on average at its lowest its 21.3c. Average of 30.2c during the hottest part of the day and 17c at the coldest at night. Looking at this we can deduce that  A hot basking spot of 30c at peak daytime is still required at night during the winter and going down to 17c during the dead of night is a sensible minimum for these lizards. During the summer months at the peak in July the average nighttime temps are around 25c with a minumum in Surakarta of 22c. So keeping an anbient temprature of 22-25 at night is best. During the Day in the summer we can see peak temprature averages for these 5 locations are 32.4c so to take into account the heat absorption of a basking spot another 2-4 degrees so around 34c- 36c.

Diet and nutrition -

There diets are relativly uncomplicated to attain however as these are not a species you can handle its quite hard to measure there weight so you have to eyeball how they are getting on when feeding them by looking at the size of there abdomens, feed them a mix of insects dusted with calcium carbonate suppliment with D3 and vitimin A and other multivitimins and in occasion crested gecko diet.

The insects i would suggest are as follows :

• Small Locusts
• Small crickets
• Drosophila hydei fruit flies (The bigger ones)
• Meal worms
• Wax worms
• Calci Worms
• Crested gecko diet

Feed them once every 2-3 days per each indevidual feed between 4-8 locusts or crickets and suppliment other diets every so often such as the fruit flies and crested gecko diets. If you want to extend the times between feeding incase you are away for more than a couple of days put in a dish of meal worms dusted along with there usual diet before leaving, they are not there favorite food as they dont move as much as they like but from my own observations i have noticed they pick at them when they have finished there other food sources.

Another thing they enjoy is crested gecko diet, its a sweet treat they use for energy and hydration, ive always found that its best to keep it a watery consistancy when feeding as they will use if for additional hydration.

A variety of food items is key for most reptile species so this is no exception, the more of a varienty you give the healthier the animal will be.

Misting is required with this species and it is important to spray them regularly to keep the humidity up to there natural levels, you can mist and spray daily or every other day, they will activly drink the droplets on leaves and its best practice to leave a shallow bowl in the bottom of the enclosure incase the droplets evaporate when they want a drink. Either that or get a USB powered Water pump with hose and have it flow down decor to the bottom of ythe enclosure like a small stream.

Behaviours-

These lizards are absolutly facinating to watch they display a peletora of behaviours that you simply do not see with other lizards, the main reason for this is the ability to keep them in groups.

The group i have is 5 individuals this contains 3 males and 2 females, the males can be identified for there more vibrant black and white banding down there body and white spots above the band, whereas the females are alot more plain brown looking.

Frequently i will catch them waving at each other to communicate and from as far as i can tell its used in alot of situations from signaling others about Teratories to resources, they will activly hunt crickets and other insects when avalable and will chase each other to take each others food, generally once they are full they do stop and go back to basking, exploring or hiding in leaves.

Teratorial disputes can appear to be quite violent but from my observations they are quickly resolved within 30 seconds its generally the males who will chase each other but due to there size they dont really do much damage to each other, ive never seem any blood drawn or physical damage on any of my animals.

Mating rituals with these species can be quite violent as the males will pursue the female and grab them from a couple of centermeters from there head and hold them in place for around 5 minutes, after they are done the male lets go. Other males will attempt to attack the other males from my observations when pursuing a mate, again no damage is caused to them.

On occasion the males will go for each others tails but if you have plently of foliage for them to strafe through these encounters dont last long.

The above makes them sound like this is a daily thing but i can assure you these are rare behaviours on the most part and i barly see this happen, once a month at a push.

As long as they are well fed they generally are happy to chill together and bask on each other, they are a great lizard to keep together its just impartant to make sure they have enough places to hide if they want to be left alone.

Handling -

Handling is not advised for these as they are very skittish and if in a group ones skittishness will cascade in all of there skittishness at once which can prove to be a little scary when they all run towards an open tank, its important before opening the enclosure to identify as many as you can and any near the openings to avoid this. I have personally only had one escape as ive opened the door due to my own lack of concentation, if they see your going to feed them they will run towards the food and if its outside there enclosure any movement from your hand as there concentrated on the food item can cause them to run and panic, not great if the enclosure door is open, there size means that they can easly fit under doorways and gaps so not ideal if they escape and there is a good chance that you could loose them perminenetly.

That said they are not impossible to hold but the only time i would advise holding them is to check the health visually, to grab them simply put your hand in the enclosure and scoop them towards the back and wrap your fingers around there body using your thumb to secure below there neck to avoid them getting free, be very gentle when doing this to avoid hurting them as they are fragile and are known for tail drops. You can slowly lift your fingers and check them over. Once compleate place them back into the enclosure gently facing them towards the back wall 99% of the time they will run and jump forward.

Day and night Cycle -

The regional spread has around 12 -13.5 hours of sunlight from dawn to dusk in the summer and between 10.5-12 hours during the winter. A you can see below from the 5 locations there isnt much of a diffence overall. Some of the areas they are found are in regions that are almost at the equatorial line.

Common health issues -

The majority of these lizards at current are wild caught unfortunatly so the majority of there health issues stem from ther previous past in the wild, these are generally thinks such as parasites and the age of these animals, they generally only live for 4 years and being majority wild causght the age of these animals are unknown so you could potentially be buying an animal with a very short life span. Due to there Size and skittishness i can see taking these to a vet a challenge.

Humidity requirements -

Humidity should be generally between 70-80% and can be achieved by keeping the substrate moist and slightly damp. in the UK the general humidity is around 60% so achieving that extra 10-20% does not take much. Spraying them daily or every other day depending on conditions seems to work well to keep them hydrated and happy.

As you can see fromt he charts below there is a rainy season and a dryer season, During the summer months there is around 60-70% chance of precipitation so around every 4 or 5 in 7 days have rain. but during the winter this drops to between 0-25% so every 2 in 7 days maximum have rain. Looking at this setting your spraying device to everyday to every other day for the summer months for between 30-50 seconds (device dependant) and during the winter months down to once or twice a week for 30 seconds ,with small spray mistings of leaves for hydration everyday.

Cleaning-

As with every lizard it is important to keep tehre hygeine in tip top condition to avoid unwanted infections to your animals. Dependant on how you set them up a gental spray from a water bottle on feaces attached to live plant leaves churn the substrate at the bottom and add isopods and springtails will keep and even balance of cleanlyness along with spot picking larger fecices when nessisary will keep these guys in top top conditions and wash decor every so often to aviod bacteria build up. Replace the substrate every 3 months to avoid toxic buildup of waste or sooner depending on the way the enclosure is setup, if you setup a full bioactive enclosure these periods of time can be increased.

Brumation - Ive not really seen any evidence of this they seem to slow down and bask more often with reduced activity but not to the point i would consider it a full blown brumation cycle. Looking at the temprature data its most likely region dependant as some areas got down to 10c during the night in there further distributions but on average i dont think this would be much more than a shallow brumation for more than a month if they even do.

Avalability -

This is the only thing i would say  to not recomending buying them unless you have intent to breed them for a better captive bred population, from 2024 this seems to be lacking in the market there isn't many people working with these incredible little guys unfortunatly. But that said they are pretty easy to aquire and they have a stable population according to the IUCN list and are catagorised as least concern so if you dont mind wild caught ones just be careful and dont expect to have them long.

The ones i bought where wild caught and one of them arrived dead and another had lumps over its neck almost like tumors but is still going strong. I got a replacement for the deceased one and have a good group going for a while now with no major issues.

They are also reasonably priced there not an expensive lizard which makes them ideal for someone looking for more of a hands off animal on a budget.

References-

Gallery -

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