Geckos or Anoles
 

Anyone have ideas on how to help them survice the cold months. I sure do like seeing them on the plants outside our birdcage. We have a healthy population right now and would like to see it grow.

They will be fine. They return each year.

The Mexican Brown Anole has been around so long it's now become indigenous to the state. I don't know where they go or how they survive in the winter months but they always come back. They have adjusted to our climate and I would suggest you just leave them alone. They are curious little creatures but they don't really want any contact with humans and especially not our food.

It was kind of you to ask.

These are cold blooded creatures who adapt to the environmental conditions. Last December I worked at PGA Tour Q-school at Orange County National. Most days we had a delay from frost and cold. The anoles survived that well. They just moved a little slower. OK a lot slower. It was almost comical to see them barely crawling along.

One year in CA, we had an especially cold spell and the iguanas were falling asleep in the trees because their metabolism slows down in cold. Some even fell out of the trees asleep. They survived also.

Anoles and Geckos brumate in the cold. Brumation is a hibernation-like state where the reptile finds hibernaculums (burrows, rock crevices, caves or leaf litter) in which they can be somewhat insulated. When the weather warms up they come out; when it cools down they go back into their hibernaculums. Mammals that hybernate usually sleep through the whole winter.

You mean "The Villages South" for Reptiles in Central America doesn't exist? I always thought that's where they go for the winter! :oops: