Mr. Cricketts, the anole in question, in her prime
Can any reader help with this question that came in to the AA offices?
“I found the Anole Annals website but I really would just like an answer to one question. Can you help me? My daughter wanted an anole and we bought one in May of 2012. Well, she passed away last night and I didn’t realize the extent of my love for her because I’ve been miserable all night. She would be brown and turn green when she slept or when she was alone. I found her at 10 PM hanging out of her log and I believe she had just expired because she was still all soft and lovely. The main thing is she was her beautiful green color and in death she remained green. Is it normal for an anole to be green when they die? Would she have turned green before or after her death? Could she have felt a feeling of calm or been sleeping in her green color when she died? I really am just hoping she died in her sleep. She was an old lady and her habits changed. She used to always be vertical in her greenery, but the last 2 months I think it was too hard for her to grasp and she spent more time on her log or on the slanted jutouts on her log as that was easier for her to hold on to but still be a little bit vertical. I am just trying to come to grips with her death and hoping she was OK at the very end. I was probably in the same room as I was on the computer but not paying attention to her right then, really hoping she wasn’t reaching out of the log to try and get my attention and I didn’t know.”
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Ambika Kamath
Very sorry for the loss of your pet. I’ve had the misfortune of seeing quite a few dead green anoles in the wild, as we’ve documented here before: https://www.anoleannals.org/2015/03/25/a-sad-mystery-dying-green-anoles-in-gainesville/
Though I didn’t take any notes on colour, my memory suggests that most of these dead green anoles were in fact green, and not brown. There’s some evidence that brown coloration indicates stress in A. carolinensis (https://www.anoleannals.org/2015/01/09/sicb-2015-color-and-stress-in-green-anoles/), so I’d like to believe that these dying lizards were relatively stress-free, but it’s a difficult question to answer for sure.
Anna
My anole just died a brown color while it is a green anole. It depends if your lizard was stressed in death.
Sarrighi
My female anole was dark brown in her last few days. I thought she was feeling better because she had turned a beautiful green. She had passed.
Pat Shipman
I am so sorry to hear of the passing of Mr. Crickets. I have not seen an anole die, but my observations of them in the wild is that they are green when they are warm & happy and darker when stressed or cold.
Skip Lazell
My avid naturalist uncles taught me from infancy that green=feeling OK and brown= unhappy or stressed. Always seems basically true (in MS)…. Skip
Cynthia
I have had my Anole MOJO for 10 plus years. He passed yesterday morning. He was green n stayed green in his passing. I read they r green when sleeping n believe he died in his sleep. But w/ one eye open as he looked for me. He had big eyes n would look at me when I talked to him. He was tame n would stay on my hand n liked the water. Towards the end my female turned vicious n was attacking him n had to remove her . She was stressing him turning him brown n hiding . He slowed down over the next 4 weeks staying on the ground . Was hand feeding cricket till he no longer would eat the night before. I will miss him but know he had a good life… I’ve been told 10 years for an anole is unbelievable . He was happy
Jonathan Losos
10 years is an extraordinary life for a green anole! I’ve never heard of an anole making it to be a decadanarian. I’m sorry for your loss, but it seems like Mojo had a wonderful life.
Uwe Bartelt
Hi,don’t be sad .Its a long and good live.
I have a pair Anolis valencienni more than 13 years old.Female often on ground and shows thats for her heavy to climp up branches…….
I hope the best
other anoles of mine sleeps. I think all ok. But no, they have gone…….
best regards
Cynthia
Did u say you have a pair of green ANOLE’s 13 years old?
Uwe Bartelt
sorry for my writing mistakes, I am an old german chaot…….
please be carefully with me
thanks
Savannah
I’ve have my Anole for over a year, when I had gotten my anole I didn’t have any clue on what I was doing. I fed him mealworms and/or crickets once a day. Sometimes he would not eat, he ended up getting really skinny, could see his spine. When I came home from my dads on a Sunday night(my mom was at her boyfriends for the weekend) I was checking up on him and he wasn’t moving and I couldn’t see him breathing, so I figured he had passed. Quite often he had gotten brown and I felt bad because I didn’t know what to do. He always turned green when he slept. But whenI has gotten home he was a very beautiful green, I didn’t really know if he had passed or just sleeping . But now I know that he had passed. Form reading all of these comments, I hope he had passed in his sleep
Christian
How about yall just leave them in the wild
sara
My green anole was eating and drinking he was fine but we have no idea why he died some of our theories was that he was old, or something smashed him but we do not know he just suddenly died today but he lived a good life he died pretty green!
SANG TAEK LEE
my anole died today.i do not now hiow it died
Rick+Wallach
@savannah: Anoles only live for a few years on average so he might have been old, but please don’t feed them mealworms – they can’t fully digest their hard exoskeletons and it congests, finally clogs, their intestines. They’ll stop eating and die of the impaction. There are (supposedly) softer bodied mealworms usually called “superworms” sold by reptile dealers; even so, keep them to a minimum. Crickets are fine, preferably small ones, as are soft-bodied grublike bugs like waxworm larvae. Most petshops carrying reptiles now sell them (and you can order them online too). If your anole is small enough, wingless fruit flies will be happily taken as snacks.
@Lee: No way to tell from what little you wrote. Had it been eating and drinking? How old was it?
sky
i took my anole out to my backyard today to let her roam around on a small tree we have in the backyard its pretty hot today so when i noticed she was on the concret we paint black i was gonna pick her up and take her inside to get some water but she didnt move at all she had turned a bright green it’ been about 25 minutes or so since it happened she was really active and loved to be in my hands i jut finished digging a hole for her in the backyard :<