So I never intended to have a pet reptile, but my roommate had a stowaway anole hiding in her golf bag from Florida, so now we have a little brown anole up in Missouri. We've had it for a just over a month now, and I'm not sure if things are going as well as they used to be. I really don't know what I'm doing so any advice about keeping him would be greatly appriciated. Right away I went to a pet store and bought a set up, terrarium, lights, humidity and temperature gauge, substrate, mealworms and crickets. I was very happy to see him eating the crickets on the first day, but after a couple weeks of keeping crickets I switched to meal worms because they are much much easier to keep. Sometimes I just put in the meal worms and hope that he will find them later because he didn't see them right away. After several weeks of meal worms, I noticed that there were not only little fly-things in the terrarium, but also these black beetleish things, about as long as a pinky fingernail, and I had no idea how they got in there. There were at least three crawling around, and my anole didn't want to eat them so I decided that they needed to go. I replaced all the substrate and cleaned everything in the terrarium. New substrate was put in and I rearranged his furniture, but I realize that I haven't seen my lizard eating in days. Even when I put meal worms right in front of him he doesn't seem interested. I got crickets, and He doesn't seem interested in them either. He did display his dewlap yesterday which was exciting because I was never totally sure if he was a he or not anyways, but they whole not eating thing concerns me. Also sometimes I just leave his food in there with him, which is probably not a good idea but I'm not sure what else to do. I just want time to eat so he stays alive and all.
We are in a similar boat, as unintended anole owners... I have read somewhere not to feed them mealworms, just crickets, but I don't know! I hope someone who has some experience can help you!
