How my tortoises made friends with lizards.

[Tortoise_Wrangler]

This little guy is the Western Fence Lizard aka blue bellied lizard. If you live in Arizona, California, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah or Washington then you probably see these guys all the time. When I first moved into my neighborhood here in SoCal, I rarely saw these guys and didn't think much of it when I didn't see any around my home. Well, it turns out these little guys like to eat fleas and ticks, among many other bugs but apparently their preference is fleas and ticks. I think the reason I didn't find these guys around my house was a pair of mocking birds that lived in the tree in my yard and the neighborhood cat that prowled my property.

Now you're probably wondering where I'm going with this, so I'll get to it. SoCal is being overrun with fleas at the moment, this extremely hot and dry weather is apparently the perfect breeding conditions for fleas. I work property management and my facility was so overrun you couldn't walk around without feeling them jump on you. I called an exterminator and he told me that his calls for fleas has risen by 5 times, so much so he's been working 12-14 hour days just to keep up with the amount of calls for fleas. Well, I brought fleas home with me and my house got pretty bad, but we quelled them by removing the carpet in our home and medicating our dogs. Now the problem was, I started to find fleas on my tortoises soft spots and there wasn't a day where they were flea free.

I looked up remedies but found nothing, but I just so happened to come across an article about Western Fence Lizards and how they eat fleas. Luckily for me the cat that hunted all the lizards died and the mocking birds where killed by my Shiba Inu (A bird hunting dog from Japan) who literally snagged them from the air. When I realized the potential these Lizards had, I went to my parents home. They have two big dogs that keep the cats away and a hawk that keeps the birds away, their home is crawling with Western Fence Lizards. I caught about a dozen of them and released them in my tortoise enclosure. This was last year, but in the Summer I noticed a bunch of baby lizards all over my property, and suddenly I noticed way less fleas. Then I noticed I haven't seen any fleas on my tortoises. My enclosure has so many hiding places for these lizards they're thriving, and now they have a habitat they maintain for my tortoises.

If you see these little lizards, they're your tortoise's best friends and I couldn't be happier with the colony that has formed alongside my tortoise breeding colonies. Just an Eco-friendly tip for my friends here on the tortoiseforum. My neighborhood is also overrun with brown widows from south africa, and invasive species that are wiping out the black widow, I have seen a whole lot less of these guys too. The lizards also eat caterpillars that were infesting my garden, that has been reduced significantly too.

Thanks Western Fence Lizards, you guys are really cool dudes.

 

[Yvonne G]

Interesting. I felt fleas wouldn't be a problem for tortoises because of the cold blooded nature of the beast. Good to know. Now if I can just keep the cats from the lizards.

 

[Tortoise_Wrangler]

Interesting. I felt fleas wouldn't be a problem for tortoises because of the cold blooded nature of the beast. Good to know. Now if I can just keep the cats from the lizards.

Two years ago was the first time I saw a flea on a tortoise and I've been raising them since childhood too.

 

[Big Charlie]

Very interesting story! We used to have lots of blue bellies when we lived nearer the coast. I haven't seen any since we moved to the valley. Maybe they don't like our climate.

What a wonderful way to control pests.

I'd like to find something to get rid of black widows. We are overrun by those. The brown recluse is worse however; I knew someone who nearly lost his leg to one.

 

[wellington]

Great flea control and a beautiful lizard to have around.

 

[Tom]

None of this story adds up…

A baby fence swift might eat a flea if it happened to come across one, but since adult fleas are usually on the host mammal, they would not likely come into contact with one. An adult fence swift would not waste its time pursuing a tiny flea and likely couldn't catch one if it did see one. Fleas do not constitute a large part of this lizard's diet, if any at all.

Fleas that prey upon mammals do not prey upon reptiles. This is a biological fact.

I don't know where in SoCal you are, but the flea issue here this year is no different than any other year. Due to my business I travel dozens of dogs all over SoCal daily. We have had zero flea issues this year, just like every other year.

Now, I am a fan of these lizards. They do eat pest insects, like flies, so I love having them around, I just don't believe they will have much of an impact on flea populations or on nocturnal spider populations. On my ranches I can stand still and count dozens of these lizards in any direction during the day, but I still smash 10-15 black widows every single night, all summer long, while the lizards are fast asleep in the dark.

@Will , you have a lot of knowledge about biology and wildlife. Would you mind lending your thoughts on this topic? Am I off base here?

 

[Millerlite]

Fleas are only adults and in the blood sucking part of its life for the smallest amount of its life. It mostly lives in a larva and egg state. This year It has seemed to be worse for fleas then other years. The dry dirt and grass cause them to go crazy. Not sure how mucha a lizard can eat but maybe they eat the larva and eggs before they can jump into a dog. I mean you need results so maybe they are doing something . the blue belly is immuned to like disease and if a tick bites a blue belly then the blind diseases is killed and it no longer will have like disease that's petty cool lol

Kyle

 

[Tortoise_Wrangler]

None of this story adds up…

A baby fence swift might eat a flea if it happened to come across one, but since adult fleas are usually on the host mammal, they would not likely come into contact with one. An adult fence swift would not waste its time pursuing a tiny flea and likely couldn't catch one if it did see one. Fleas do not constitute a large part of this lizard's diet, if any at all.

Fleas that prey upon mammals do not prey upon reptiles. This is a biological fact.

I don't know where in SoCal you are, but the flea issue here this year is no different than any other year. Due to my business I travel dozens of dogs all over SoCal daily. We have had zero flea issues this year, just like every other year.

Now, I am a fan of these lizards. They do eat pest insects, like flies, so I love having them around, I just don't believe they will have much of an impact on flea populations or on nocturnal spider populations. On my ranches I can stand still and count dozens of these lizards in any direction during the day, but I still smash 10-15 black widows every single night, all summer long, while the lizards are fast asleep in the dark.

@Will , you have a lot of knowledge about biology and wildlife. Would you mind lending your thoughts on this topic? Am I off base here?

I could be wrong but then again I've watched full grown lizards go after bugs I couldn't see because they're so small. I read they eat fleas and ticks, which is what made me start this experiment in the first place. I did experience a decrease in fleas because of the carpet removal, but my tortoises had fleas before that and after the carpet removal. Unless I'm mistaking what I saw and what I saw was some sort of mite or tick? Understand I would never post blatant lies on this forum, that's not who I am. It's entirely possibly I mistook one thing for another, or maybe the fleas were confused or starving? I also saw brown widows during the day all the time, my neighborhood is infested, but since this boom of lizards, I've seen less brown widows. Are they linked? I personally think so, then again, I'm open to being wrong. I've spoken with multiple exterminators, and unless they were lying to my face, then SoCal is booming with fleas. Judging my experience at the place that I work, where you can feel the fleas attack you constantly, I would say they're telling the truth. However, I work in a low income neighborhood where people don't understand the concept of a leash, let alone flea medication.

Fleas are only adults and in the blood sucking part of its life for the smallest amount of its life. It mostly lives in a larva and egg state. This year It has seemed to be worse for fleas then other years. The dry dirt and grass cause them to go crazy. Not sure how mucha a lizard can eat but maybe they eat the larva and eggs before they can jump into a dog. I mean you need results so maybe they are doing something . the blue belly is immuned to like disease and if a tick bites a blue belly then the blind diseases is killed and it no longer will have like disease that's petty cool lol

Kyle

Or maybe this is a more accurate theory?

Either way, I've had a decrease in bugs in general since my lizard boom. I would like more input actually, if it turns out my torts were getting eaten up by ticks or some sort of mite, I'll need to take them to the vets. I haven't seen anything on them for a long time now, I inspect them daily, but still, I'm certain I saw fleas.

 

[Tom]

I could be wrong but then again I've watched full grown lizards go after bugs I couldn't see because they're so small. I read they eat fleas and ticks, which is what made me start this experiment in the first place. I did experience a decrease in fleas because of the carpet removal, but my tortoises had fleas before that and after the carpet removal. Unless I'm mistaking what I saw and what I saw was some sort of mite or tick? Understand I would never post blatant lies on this forum, that's not who I am. It's entirely possibly I mistook one thing for another, or maybe the fleas were confused or starving? I also saw brown widows during the day all the time, my neighborhood is infested, but since this boom of lizards, I've seen less brown widows. Are they linked? I personally think so, then again, I'm open to being wrong. I've spoken with multiple exterminators, and unless they were lying to my face, then SoCal is booming with fleas. Judging my experience at the place that I work, where you can feel the fleas attack you constantly, I would say they're telling the truth. However, I work in a low income neighborhood where people don't understand the concept of a leash, let alone flea medication.

I would also like to learn more.

Not accusing you of lying. Not at all. I have no doubt you believe what you have written, but I have to question it because it doesn't make biological sense with what I know about fleas, lizards, tortoises, arachnids and insects in general.

I would guess that you are having fewer flea problems because of the other steps you've taken (like the carpet removal…) and also because we are moving into fall with cooler temperatures.

I would also guess that what you saw on your tortoise was one of the harmless substrate flies that occur in the environment and like to move in and populate our tortoise enclosures. Let's assume for the sake of conversation that I'm wrong about this, and you did actually see a flea on your tortoise. It is physically possible that an adult flea hopped off of the host mammal momentarily and it just happened to land on your tortoise and you just happened to be there and see it. This is all very unlikely, but physically possible. If that were the case, the flea would not have been parasitizing your tortoise. They can't and don't drink from reptiles, and it would not matter if they were starving.

About the spiders, I suppose it is possible for the lizards to stumble across a hiding nocturnal spider, and if they did, they'd certainly eat it. I can't really argue that one, but I can say the lizards have made no dent in the nocturnal spider population in my area and we have not only fence swifts, but several other lizard species as well.

 

[JoesMum]

It is like logical to assume that a healthy population of wild bug eating animals means there is a healthy population of bugs. If there are fewer bugs then the population of animals eating them will decline too.

Hence Tom has both a healthy population of lizards and bugs!

Where captive bug eating animals are kept, they can eat all available bugs and not die out or move on because they'll fed by their owner. In those circumstances the bug population within the enclosure may decline.

 

[tglazie]

This is a fascinating thread. In my personal experience, tortoises in captivity draw lizards for the same reason that gopher tortoise burrows draw all manner of other reptiles. I always have standing water in clay pots, refilled daily, and these areas tend to become somewhat overgrown from the run off. Water invariably splashes against the overgrowth, and this is lapped up by fence lizards and green anoles in the morning, and it is lapped by Mediterranean geckos in the evening. Interestingly, there are no five lined skinks or swifts in the main tortoise runs. It is only outside the tortoise areas that I find swifts, and their preference appears to be drier, rockier outcroppings dotted by bunch grass. Now, I see plenty of lizards, all the time, despite the fact that my cat Stinky makes a regular effort at exterminating every last one of these poor fellows. However, I figure the extensive cinder block walls with the wooden overhangs make for some very effective lizard shelter. It seems to me that the most numerous of the species has to be the Mediterranean geckos. I see at least three or four of these guys dashing about anytime I lift a lid on one of the margies' shelters. They are everywhere. Turn a stone, you're bound to find two or three. Rake a pile of leaves, ten or twelve will spill out. Those are some ridiculously prolific lizards, and it seems as though only the biggest and the baddest ones dare hang beneath the outside lights in the warm summer night, catching moths, baby junebugs, green fliers, and any other insect foolish enough to come close.

Ultimately, I think the types of plants we tortoise keepers foster in our enclosures, the continuing presence of fresh standing water, the reptile friendly shelters and the fences that make fast travel across a densely planted landscape all the more trouble free, and the heavily planted sections, free from pesticides, fertilized by tortoise droppings, able to host all forms of beetles, centipedes, arachnids, fleas, aphids, snails, slugs, termites, crickets, moths, flies, butterflies, and who knows what else. I mean, I maybe grow eight to ten milk thistle plants per year (my margies don't really care for them, though Graecus loves it, so I keep harvesting and reharvesting the seed for him; but the monarchs love that part of my place, and where the monarchs go, there are always large anoles looking to snatch them up).

I remember reading a story recently about how wolves changed the grazing behavior of all the herbivores living in Yellowstone, and this in turn changed the flow of rivers and creeks, allowing for more biodiversity. I wonder how much effect this has on a small scale. Do the presence of lizards have an effect on the behavior of their insect prey? What exactly is the nature of their impact on an isolated environment within the walls of the tortoise paddock? Silly question, maybe, but there certainly is a lot going on there.

T.G.

 

[Tortoise_Wrangler]

This is a fascinating thread. In my personal experience, tortoises in captivity draw lizards for the same reason that gopher tortoise burrows draw all manner of other reptiles. I always have standing water in clay pots, refilled daily, and these areas tend to become somewhat overgrown from the run off. Water invariably splashes against the overgrowth, and this is lapped up by fence lizards and green anoles in the morning, and it is lapped by Mediterranean geckos in the evening. Interestingly, there are no five lined skinks or swifts in the main tortoise runs. It is only outside the tortoise areas that I find swifts, and their preference appears to be drier, rockier outcroppings dotted by bunch grass. Now, I see plenty of lizards, all the time, despite the fact that my cat Stinky makes a regular effort at exterminating every last one of these poor fellows. However, I figure the extensive cinder block walls with the wooden overhangs make for some very effective lizard shelter. It seems to me that the most numerous of the species has to be the Mediterranean geckos. I see at least three or four of these guys dashing about anytime I lift a lid on one of the margies' shelters. They are everywhere. Turn a stone, you're bound to find two or three. Rake a pile of leaves, ten or twelve will spill out. Those are some ridiculously prolific lizards, and it seems as though only the biggest and the baddest ones dare hang beneath the outside lights in the warm summer night, catching moths, baby junebugs, green fliers, and any other insect foolish enough to come close.

Ultimately, I think the types of plants we tortoise keepers foster in our enclosures, the continuing presence of fresh standing water, the reptile friendly shelters and the fences that make fast travel across a densely planted landscape all the more trouble free, and the heavily planted sections, free from pesticides, fertilized by tortoise droppings, able to host all forms of beetles, centipedes, arachnids, fleas, aphids, snails, slugs, termites, crickets, moths, flies, butterflies, and who knows what else. I mean, I maybe grow eight to ten milk thistle plants per year (my margies don't really care for them, though Graecus loves it, so I keep harvesting and reharvesting the seed for him; but the monarchs love that part of my place, and where the monarchs go, there are always large anoles looking to snatch them up).

I remember reading a story recently about how wolves changed the grazing behavior of all the herbivores living in Yellowstone, and this in turn changed the flow of rivers and creeks, allowing for more biodiversity. I wonder how much effect this has on a small scale. Do the presence of lizards have an effect on the behavior of their insect prey? What exactly is the nature of their impact on an isolated environment within the walls of the tortoise paddock? Silly question, maybe, but there certainly is a lot going on there.

T.G.

I've had a boom of Skinks and Alligator Lizards too, they came back on their own without my help. I think I jumped ahead of myself a bit giving credit to just one lizard, but the Swifts are the most common in the enclosure. I actually think Tom is right in his assessment, I've done more homework and I think I gave the Swifts the credit for my actions. I think I saw something else on my tortoises, maybe ticks and I just didn't recognize them? I'm not sure, I haven't seen anything like that on my torts for awhile. However, Swifts do eat ticks, so what I said has some merit if not a little inaccurate with the fleas. Frankly I'd rather have them eat ticks over fleas. Last night a buddy and I grabbed some flashlights and a ladder and when searching the nooks and crannies of my patio awning. We found one skink wedged into a tight spot, they do eat spiders from what I read so I think I might know who's been snacking on the brown widows. Also found an Alligator Lizard, so this might be a team effort of all the lizards that have decided to come and live with my tortoises.

Even I though think my original post is a little inaccurate, I believe we've discovered an interesting topic to discuss.

 

[Patty P]

View attachment 189626

This little guy is the Western Fence Lizard aka blue bellied lizard. If you live in Arizona, California, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah or Washington then you probably see these guys all the time. When I first moved into my neighborhood here in SoCal, I rarely saw these guys and didn't think much of it when I didn't see any around my home. Well, it turns out these little guys like to eat fleas and ticks, among many other bugs but apparently their preference is fleas and ticks. I think the reason I didn't find these guys around my house was a pair of mocking birds that lived in the tree in my yard and the neighborhood cat that prowled my property.

Now you're probably wondering where I'm going with this, so I'll get to it. SoCal is being overrun with fleas at the moment, this extremely hot and dry weather is apparently the perfect breeding conditions for fleas. I work property management and my facility was so overrun you couldn't walk around without feeling them jump on you. I called an exterminator and he told me that his calls for fleas has risen by 5 times, so much so he's been working 12-14 hour days just to keep up with the amount of calls for fleas. Well, I brought fleas home with me and my house got pretty bad, but we quelled them by removing the carpet in our home and medicating our dogs. Now the problem was, I started to find fleas on my tortoises soft spots and there wasn't a day where they were flea free.

I looked up remedies but found nothing, but I just so happened to come across an article about Western Fence Lizards and how they eat fleas. Luckily for me the cat that hunted all the lizards died and the mocking birds where killed by my Shiba Inu (A bird hunting dog from Japan) who literally snagged them from the air. When I realized the potential these Lizards had, I went to my parents home. They have two big dogs that keep the cats away and a hawk that keeps the birds away, their home is crawling with Western Fence Lizards. I caught about a dozen of them and released them in my tortoise enclosure. This was last year, but in the Summer I noticed a bunch of baby lizards all over my property, and suddenly I noticed way less fleas. Then I noticed I haven't seen any fleas on my tortoises. My enclosure has so many hiding places for these lizards they're thriving, and now they have a habitat they maintain for my tortoises.

If you see these little lizards, they're your tortoise's best friends and I couldn't be happier with the colony that has formed alongside my tortoise breeding colonies. Just an Eco-friendly tip for my friends here on the tortoiseforum. My neighborhood is also overrun with brown widows from south africa, and invasive species that are wiping out the black widow, I have seen a whole lot less of these guys too. The lizards also eat caterpillars that were infesting my garden, that has been reduced significantly too.

Thanks Western Fence Lizards, you guys are really cool dudes.

This is an issue I hadn't considered. I live in Southern NY and we had a real humid summer with more than our fair share of deer ticks, fleas, and mosquitoes. Having chronic Lyme Disease now I am ultra neurotic about all the ticks here. Do ticks feed on tortoises?

 

[Tom]

...I believe we've discovered an interesting topic to discuss.

I agree!!!

 

[Tom]

Do ticks feed on tortoises?

Tortoise tick species feed on tortoises. Deer, dog and other mammalian parasitizing tick species do not.

Outside of a couple of freshly imported wild caught tortoises in the late 80's, I have never seen a tick on a captive tortoise in the US. I will grant that it is possible, especially for people who live in areas where wild tortoises occur, like Mojave, Southern TX, and FL, but it is by no means common, or something most people ned to worry about.

 

[Kapidolo Farms]

Bio active enclosures need not only be a small glass case. I have many many fence lizards here. The occasional gopher snake, still many gophers though, and alligator lizards. Many birds, rabbits, squirrels, even some kangaroo rats. Owls and hawks visit and clear out the rabbits and squirrels, but they repopulate pretty fast.

We also have coyotes, which are good in my opinion as we don't have raccoons, or opossums. Also few outdoor cats in the area, thank you coyotes. I have an indoor cat that I love so much he does not spend time outside with mean people, cars, predators, parasites or fleas.

The reliable water source does much to keep these guys in the area, that and a lack of pesticides.

The fence lizards do not run anymore when I walk by. They do seem to know what a hose does.

I have toured a few large outdoor collections, they all end up being 'bio active spaces.

 

[HI Tortoise Rescue]

According to my sources at the Smithsonian, tortoises don't get fleas, but they do get several species of mites. These are evidently not harmful to the tortoise, but if they bother you, I suggest adding some diatomaceous earth to the bedding. Tortoises (& you & I) can eat diatomaceous earth with no problem at all, but mites, fleas, fruit flies, & other insects get the stuff in their chitin joints, & soon can't move. Great bug killer, cheap, & perfectly safe.

Ken

 

[HI Tortoise Rescue]

How much what has an effect on what? Not clear on your question, but welcome to the forum.

Ken

 

[Lemonade]

I love your story because I love my blue bellies. I, too, had some imported from my ex husband because there weren't any when I moved into my city house. A benefit has been that they eat the flies which gather around my box turtles' fruits and veggies. Several years ago the population was in decline because of a feral cat. So I trapped the cat, had it fixed, and started feeding it.

Anyway, gotta love the blue bellies.

 

[TammyJ]

According to my sources at the Smithsonian, tortoises don't get fleas, but they do get several species of mites. These are evidently not harmful to the tortoise, but if they bother you, I suggest adding some diatomaceous earth to the bedding. Tortoises (& you & I) can eat diatomaceous earth with no problem at all, but mites, fleas, fruit flies, & other insects get the stuff in their chitin joints, & soon can't move. Great bug killer, cheap, & perfectly safe.

Ken

Diatomaceous earth? Just what is this? What comprises it? Can I use it in my snake, rat and tortoise enclosures if I notice any fleas or mites? Does it have a "brand name" that may be more familiar to me and others?