Chuckwalla Care Guide

Species Common Name: Chuckwalla

Scientific Name: Sauromalus ater (Previously Sauromalus obesus)

Adult Size: 25-35cm

Captive Life Span: 15+ Years (potentially 25+)

Data for this species in the wild

Natural Distribution: Southern USA (California, Arizona, Nevada and Utah)

Habitat Type: Harsh dry environment of the Sonoran and Mojave Deserts, they can be found on areas of old lava flows, rocky outcrops, boulder fields and often living in areas with Creosote Bush (their primary wild diet).

Activity Pattern: Diurnal (Day Time Active)

Activity Zone: Terrestrial but will climb bushes, rock outcrops and even cliff sides

Summer Temperature Range: High 30’s into Low 40’s, peaking at near to 50c, nighttime temperatures stay mid to high 20’s.  Chuckwallas are recorded as living within Death Valley California, one of the hottest and driest places on earth.

Winter Temperature Range: 15-25c Daytime highs, Nighttime low’s down to just above freezing.

Wild Diet: They are herbivorous, eating a variety of desert plants, often associated with Creosote bush (a specific drought tolerant desert plant) where they eat both the leaves and bright yellow flowers. They may opportunistically eat insects and seeds too.

Keeping them as Pets – The Basics

Captive housing Minimum Size: 120cm x 60cm x 60cm (48in x 24in x 24in)

Cage Material Construction: Melamine or PVC

Social Structure: Individuals, sexed pairs, or groups with only 1 male

Daytime Hotspot / Basking Temperature: 45C+

Daytime Ambient Temperatures: 32-38c hot end, 25-30c cool end

Nighttime Ambient Temperatures: 20-25c summer, 8-12c Winter

Preferred Heat source: Basking Bulb or Halogen

UVB Requirement Ferguson Zone: 3-4, (UVI 5-8 at basking site)

Preferred UVB Source: 12% or 14% linear T5 UVB bulb, we always use this in conjunction with additional LED bar to increase the general brightness in the enclosure for this species.

Humidity Requirement: Very Low

Preferred Humidity Source: None

Water Requirements: None. Their water needs are met by their vegetation based diet, a water bowl can be provided to females post egg laying and to newly hatched young. Newly hatched young will benefit from a light mist directly on the animal in the morning once per day up to 3-4 months of age.

Substrate: Dry Sandy Soil with gravel and rocks. Substrates that we use include Beardie Life, Leo Life, Bio Life Desert & Earth Mix Arid. We often use Lucky Reptile Desert Bedding in their digging box

Recommended Décor: Rocks and branches, we also provide them a digging box with slightly damp substrate at the cool end of their enclosure, this doubles up a nest site for breeding adults. They like to wedge themselves into tight crevices so the layout of décor should replicate this with stacked rocks, bark flats or flat hides that they can wedge themselves into.

Captive Diet: Herbivorous, we offer a selection of fresh dark leafy greens daily for youngsters and 4-5 times per week for adults. We do not feed ours any fruit, but they do get both dry and fresh flowers at times. We also sometimes offer, seeds, dried flower mix and dry vegetation mix such as the Arcadia Optimise 52 or Flower Boost. Some care guides state that they will eat occasional insects, we have found ours generally ignore them.

Feeding Frequency: Daily when young, 4-5 times per week as adults

Supplementation: We use Arcadia Earth Pro A + Bee Pollen

Cleaning: Being herbivorous, they can be messy so will need daily spot cleaning and a full substrate change and clean out at least every 4-6 weeks.

Handling Suitability: Excellent, they are a tame and personable species comparable to a Bearded Dragon in terms of handleability.

Recommended Starter Kit: Chuckwalla Starter Kit

Advancing your care:

Simple ways to advance your care can include opting for a larger environment for your Chuckwalla both in terms of length and height. Ensuring regular variety to their diet is also a simple step that is easily achievable for most keepers. There are some good grow kits for bearded dragons and tortoises that can also be used for growing a variety of weeds and plants for your chuckwalla to eat. Edible ornamental plants such as cornflower and nasturtium can also be grown for the flowers to enrich their diet.

You can also use some of the most cutting-edge heating and lighting equipment. The Microclimate Evo 2, Evo 3 and Evo Connected range of thermostats all have the capability to program varying temperatures throughout the day to mimic early morning temperatures, heat of the day and late evening temperatures with fully customisable options. By using the Arcadia LumenIZE range of UVB fixtures you can also program your lighting to simulate dawn and dusk to provide a much more natural range of UVB exposure throughout the day. Because Chuckwalla come from very bright environments we always use an Arcadia Jungle Dawn LED bar in conjunction with their linear UVB bulb but these are also available in the lumenize range so that there can be variable light levels throughout the day.

Environmental enrichment is another area that you can always improve, this means adding different furnishings regularly and using objects of different textures and materials to encourage your Chuckwalla to investigate their environment. This can be as simple as rotating through different cage furnishings or adding things like piles of dried leaves for them to investigate, the options for this are only as limited as your imagination. Constructing a retes stack at both the basking area and the cool end of the enclosure by using stacked pieces of rock or slate with spacers between to create narrow gaps in between layers (as is common in some monitor lizard husbandry) is a great way to replicate the natural crevices that they would wedge themselves into in the wild.

Additional Information:

All mainland Chuckwalla (referred to as either the common Chuckwalla or Northern Chuckwalla) are now classified as the same species (Sauromalus ater) rather than Sauromalus obesus which is the name by which they will appear in older literature. There are 5 subspecies of Sauromalus ater which reflect different distinct populations within different parts of their relatively large range. There are also 4 other species of Chuckwalla (different Sauromalus species) but each of these is restricted to islands in the gulf of California. All of these other species of Chuckwalla are virtually never encountered in captive collections, the only other species the author of this care guide has seen for sale in captive collections was Sauromalus hispidus (Angel Island Chuckwalla) these were seen for sale in 2009.

There is also much confusion amongst captive populations of Chuckwalla regarding morphs including Carrot tail (a phenotype only seen in a restricted population from Arizona) along with redbacks and granites which can occur in many different populations. Many of these colour traits don’t always breed true as expected which can make it even more difficult to ascertain morphs, localities and phenotypes. It is for this reason that we do not advertise our own chuckwalla as a specific phenotype, locality or colour form, although some keepers would describe our breeding male as a redback. Interestingly there is only one genuine colour morph in Chuckwalla and that is T+ Albino, but this is only in the collections of a few specialist keepers in the USA.

Chuckwallas are relatively rare in captive collections now due to difficulty breeding them and only limited numbers of keepers working with them. This wasn’t always the case. Up until the early 2000’s many were still imported from the wild but because of their relative abundance as Wild caught individuals very few keepers went to the effort of learning how to breed them. Because of this they almost disappeared from captive collections and now command a high price due to scarcity. We have been working with them for the last 2 years and fortunately have had great success in breeding them.

Chuckwallas make great pets for both beginners and enthusiasts alike as they are very personable lizards, on par with Bearded dragons for “friendliness” and due to their herbivorous diet are appealing to keepers that are disinclined to feed insects.

They are a hardy species not particularly prone to specific health conditions in captive bred individuals however high humidity in their environment can lead to shedding or respiratory issues.

Due to their gluttonous feeding response, we would suggest that thick tough stems of plants like Kale are chopped up small as a unlike other herbivorous species like Uromastyx we find Chuckwallas chew their food very little prior to swallowing and we have had more than one instance of having to remove a kale stem from our adults mouths.

Like many Iguanids, Chuckwalla will get rid of excess mineral salts from their diet through specialised glands within the nostrils. To do this they will “sneeze” mineral salts around their enclosure and often on the glass, this is normal. It is very common to see some white dried salts on or around their nostrils that can look a little crusty, this is not a sign of illness, again this is normal.

For breeding purposes, we always brumate (cool over winter) our adults for approximately 8-10 weeks. If you are not doing this at home, don’t be surprised if your Chuckwalla is less active and eats less over the winter as they will still sense the change in seasons and have a period of reduced activity even within a temperature controlled vivarium.