Desert Night Lizards (Xantusa vigilis)--collecting information

[WingedWolf]

Anyone who has kept these little guys, I'm collecting any information you might have on them--notes on setups, behavior, reproduction, favorite foods, anything and everything.
I have a mind to try captive breeding them sometime in the next couple of years, and I want the best possible chance of success when I do so.

[aliceinwl]

I have a couple of friend who have / had one.

Sand is a good substrate. They need a good hide like a slab of bark or a cholla (sp?) catus tube. Heat can be supplied by something like a red bulb or UTH. One guy would put in a piece of card board like that in the center of the drink carrier they give you at starbucks that is sort of cup shaped. He'd regularly fill the cup with water to provide a humind microclimate. They can be fed a diet of fruit flies and pin head crickets.

-Alice

[aliceinwl]

I was given a desert night lizard a few months back. So far he's doing very well for me. I'm housing him in a 5 gallon tank with a small pair of banded geckos (I'm keeping tabs on gecko versus night lizard sizes to make sure the night doesn't end up as dinner).

I built a faux rock backing for the tank (http://www.freewebs.com/herptips/fakerock.htm) with a piece of styrofoam coated with tile grout and sealed. The night lizard can scale this with ease. There is a 40 watt red bulb for heat at one end of the cage. The substrate is a mix of fine playsand and orchid bark. There are several rocks on the floor of the cage, a ledge on the back wall with a faux rock hide about midway up, and an ~7" cork tube leaning vertically against the wall. When the red light was on 24 hours, I noticed no one was really coming out at night. Now the light is on for about 14 hours during the day and off at night and the lizards seem more active. There is a small clay saucer on the cool side that I use for a water dish, I occaisionally over fill it so that there is moist substrate under some of the adjacent rocks.

I'm feeding appropriately sized crickets (the night lizard can't take crickets much larger than 2 weekers) dusted with rep-cal and herptivite and gutloaded with fish flakes and orange slices. The night lizard spends most of his days inside the cork tube or under the rock on the ledge (unless there's a gecko under it; the geckos can't / don't use the cork tube). Once the lights go out the night lizard's ground color goes from dark brown to pale tan and "he" (I haven't even tried to sex him) roams the tank. I've yet to witness feeding, but his tail has increased in girth so I know he's eating. I occaisionally see him out at dusk warming up under the light or prowling around. Hopefully, he continues to do well.

-Alice