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The Crocodile Lizard

Shinisaurus crocodilurus

In 1989 I purchased from Marc Weis in New York 4 Chinese crocodile lizards. Out of a shipment the animals with the most striking colors were selected. Alas, being beautiful, there were 3 males and one female. From 1999 till 2004 I purchased more animals from Europe. Those European animals were born out of 4 different and unrelated breeding-pairs, so that I am now working with a total of 12 bloodlines. A good base for the breeding colony. Most animals in my colony are now subadults or young ones.

In Southern China these lizards live in scattered ranges near the 24' Northern Latitude and 111' Eastern Length Parallel. In that area were 4 small ranges known in 1985 and 3 in 1991. The ranges are often as small as a few dozen square kilometers. Since these lizards are solitary and cannot live in high density, and since they were overcollected, this species is very much endangered with extinction. It may already be that the survival of the species depends on captive breeding. Obviously, then, breeding these animals is a high priority for us. Do not expect us to sell these animals any time soon, as they reproduce rather slowly and we need to increase our own colony to a healthy size of around 100 animals, based on 12 bloodlines (I now have 25). After that the first surplus animals will go to a few US Zoos, who are also working with this species, as the bloodlines we have are all different then the animals elsewhere in the USA.

Keeping these animals in Alabama is very simple. The only problem is that only one or two animals can be kept to a terrarium. The climate in Alabama is quite similar to the climate in their range in China. The small differences can be overcome easily, both by covering the terraria with plastic in winter: The winter in China is drier then in Alabama and also not as cold. By covering the terraria with plastic in the winter we keep the terraria drier in winter and we keep the frost out. This way we never had problems hibernating the animals. The terraria are between trees in such a way, that about 20% of the terraria (or of the time, they) receive sunshine, while the rest is shadow. The animals fare best in years when it rains much in April and May, just like in China. When rain lacks we sprinkle water over them or mist them several times a week. All the terraria have small ponds and branches are situated over the ponds. They prefer to sit on the branches and at danger let themselves fall in the water. They avoid ponds in which they remain visible under water, and therefore after cleaning we always throw some fallen treeleaves in the water, so that they can hide under water between those leaves. They clearly prefer that.

These animals are live-bearing and get mostly between 5 and 10 babies with a distinct yellow spot on the tip of the nose. I feed the babies mostly small rainworms, termites, baby cockroaches and baby superworms. The adults and halfgrown get rainworms, superworms, medium deadheadroaches and lots of soldierfly-larvae. I breed rainworms by mixing hay, cardboard boxes and earth and keep that moist. Every summer we authomatically have unlimited numbers of soldierfly larvae. The other insects we breed.

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