territorial caiman lizard

well, i have a young caiman lizard, purchased from the most recent imported group.

when i first got him, a little over a month ago he was rather tame, docile and would eat from my hand. he was a cutie....

over the last few weeks i noticed him changing. he would rear up on his legs when i got close to his enclosure, he would hiss and puff up, and would make himself taller and bigger when ever he saw me. when ever i would try to handle him he'd lunge at my hand.


he is by himself in a large 100 gallon tank 5 foot long with 1/3 of his enclosure aquatic set to 78 degrees water temp. his enclosure's cool side is 85 degrees, he has 3 basking zones that reach well upward of 120 degrees SPOT (not air temp but temp of wood under basking lamp)which he LOVES, his over all average ambient temp is about 90-95 with high humidity that i let air out from time to time.

it is a top opening enclosure, i think this has alot to do with it.

any idea what i can do?

Now i am no expert on Caiman lizards, I to just got one from the last round of imports. I have a male house by himself and with no real taming issues.

Set up sounds great. Was that his first cage or did you rescently move him into this cage?

How much are you feeding him? I find my guy doesnt mind being held and hanging out with me as long as he is well fed. So i feed him as much as he will eat as often to try and keep this disposition. Also what are you feeding?

I'm still using a top opening cage and am about to move him into his new front opening cage, i hope this will help the initail puffing i get when i open the cage.

The fact that he is lunging with an open mouth does make me think feeding response (ie learned from hand feeding) rather than aggression. I'm taking this more from my knowledge with tegus.

this is his first cage. i had to change it 2-3 times to make sure the heat gradient was good enough and that he had a good basking spot. i also changed the natural branch in the water to a resin(fake) branch from the aquatic section of the pet store. since i had issues with slime on the real branch.

i feed him ground lean turkey, natural/organic cat food(sometimes) and can-o-snails. i add repashy super food sumpliments to his food 2 times a week. i feed him on cheap thin paper plates and i feed about 2-3 oz of food a day. he doesnt wind up finishing ALL of it so i assume he's eating as much as he can. i only feed him once a day ONLY because by afternoon time he's already burrowed into his cypress mulch and asleep. he's only active durring the day untill about 1-2pm when he does go and burrow the rest of the day.

he lunges at me aggressively with an open mouth, there is no way that he thinks i have food and he's going after my hand. i say this because i have ausi frilled dragons, and one of my males lunges at me for food all the time. they have a curious look in their eyes and follow your hand like they want to eat it all up. the caiman doesnt have this attitude at all. he once did when i FIRST got him, but he never lunged for the food. always just kinda slowly opened his mouth and got the food.


this lunging happens after he is hissing, huffing, and puffing. he rears up on his hind legs and has his front legs in the air pointing straight down. his body is curved backward like an angery snake would pose. then he lunges forward or tail whips. usually tail whips first then opens his mouth looking to bite.

i stopped handling him for now. thinking he needs to re-gain my trust.

Wow i have never seen this in my caiman, nor has my caiman ever burrowed. I have had him lunge at me once when i first got him and you have right there is a differance between that and a food response.

Well i'm out of ideas.

i dont believe in processed meat like ground turkey. i like whole prey items for monitors and tegus which a caiman lizard is. i would feed mine mice, chicks, snails, nightcrawlers, goliath horn worms, fruit which alot of people dont no they need that, frozen silversides(whole fish that u can get at a fish specializing in fish), and jumbo krill which also can be purchased at a fishstore. btw u will need a bigger tank like 8x4x4 and if u want him to calm down just dont show fear and keep workin with him.