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The Crag Lizard

Pseudocordylus melanotus subviridus

I visited South Africa in April 1991 and March 1995 in order to collect a breeder colony of these very hardy lizards. Thanks to the help of Rod Douglas, Orti Bourquin and Andy Davies I was able to receive CITES permits and was helped collecting them.

Since these lizards live in high elevation in the states of Natal and Orange Free State, they are very well adapted to survive freezing temperatures. In the Drakensmountains there are 60-90 days a year with recorded frost, and temperatures as low as -10C ( 14F) are possible. And my search was always for pretty lizards that can be kept in outdoor terraria, dodging high electricity bills. I have seen these lizards bask in winter in between fallen snow at -1C (29 F). They need to have a frostfree hiding place between stones. I cover the flat stacked stones in the terraria in winter with pieces of carpet, fallen leaves and hay to keep them frostfree. Also I ensure much groundcontact of these stones and rocks, so that by conduction from the warmth in the ground the crags between the stones stay frostfree.

As food we provide feeding dishes with superworms, deadheadroaches and soldierfly-larvae. They sure will eat crickets also, but they cost me too much effort breeding.

During my two visits to South Africa I collected animals from two locations, about 100 km apart. We have now males with yellow sides and males with red sides. We have a decent number of bloodlines

We are still increasing our colony and do not offer this species for sale yet. Increasing the colony of this lizard is a very slow process and demands a lot of patience. Not all females will produce babies every year, and if they breed there are mostly just 3-4 live babies per year, mostly in June-July. (the maximum I had was 6 babies from one female).Also we lost 1-2 years in the start when the lizards needed to cycle to the Northern Hemisphere, and believe that that may possibly contribute to the fact that not all pairs breed. Babies are very solitary and if raised together this often results in fighting, so that I tend to raise two together. Then the babies need at least 2 years to grow to adults. I have good hope that those animals born in the Northern Hemisphere will breed more readily every year.

In nature these beautifull lizards live on rocky outcrops (Koppies) on mountain slopes or between fields and meadows. They are quite scarce as there is mostly only one or two per outcrop, and the next 1-2 are then often more then 100 feet away. They are hard to find, as they see you before you see them and so they rush into a deep unreachable crag. Baboons around try to catch any lizards to eat them, and have sorted out all the ones that were not shy enough and did not hide in deep unreachable crags in time. They are only visible in the field with binoculars and while searching for them you often get unwanted company of baboons. Where I saw skinks they were more rare or lacking, and I think that skinks may eat the few babies that are born every year.

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