Baby lizards in my yard... looks like MHD's!!!!!

dcparker1432

I'm Old Gregg!
Apr 25, 2008
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Okay... being really cruel and all aside, I released into the wild... 2 mountain horned dragons. I couldnt keep them any more and noone would take them so i let them go in the woods in my back yard. one was male, the other female which was believed to be pregnant. that was some time last year... and now. THESE little guys are EVERYWHERE in my yard and I managed to catch one... actually was VERY easy because he (and MHD's are) was very calm and docile. I took some pics... check them out. I am almost POSITIVE these guys are MHD's... they look just like the male i had. some colors and everything... what do you think???

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and this is why you never, ever do that. It's not just being cruel to the animal, it's being cruel to the ecosystem.

I don't want to scare a new member off the forum, and we are all more than happy to help you here no matter what, but this is a pretty serious offense.
 
and this is why you never, ever do that. It's not just being cruel to the animal, it's being cruel to the ecosystem.

:iagree::iagree::iagree: :rant2::rant2::rant2:
 
I take full responsibility of course.... No excuse covers it. But its just really crazy to me that these little guys are everywhere where I live. I really dont know much about lizards, but could these guys have really hatched and lived in this environment? I live in Kentucky... MHD's are a tropical lizard... well they actually stay hidden under leaves cause they like darker damper places... but still. IF these actually are MHD babies... (someone who knows please correct me if im wrong) how did they survive?...
 
Uh.... I think they are tropical anyway.. the live in the mountains though... so eh... I just think that basically they arent from any place like where i live..
 
very interesting, but not really something to be proud of. while one pair of lizards and their first babies doesn't seem like much now, obviously they can survive in this habitat quite well. let me see. . . one female, 3-4 egg clutches per breeding season, 10-19 eggs per clutch. . . that's anywhere from 30-76 babies each year. since you can see them all over the place, either they are too scared to wander off on their own or (more likely) they don't have very many natural predators. this means they will not be getting killed off and they will be competing with native reptiles, amphibians, birds, and rodents for food.
so, your original babies will reach sexual maturity at 18 months old. . . then they start breeding. what then? i'd hate for some government office to step in and put a ban on owning these lizards just because *someone* decided to let theirs go and it screwed up the whole ecosystem.
i think your best bet is to learn how to trap these lizards safely, and remove them from the wild before they turn into a very large problem.
 
Its a Northern Fence Lizard.......

That's what I was thinking while reading this entire thread. Congrats, you have an invasion of native lizards.

By all means, please don't release non-natives or store bought animals into the wild...just for future reference. :) I doubt your MHDs survived, but the possibility of an eco-disaster is very real and does happen all the time.
 
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