What Do Backyard Lizards Eat

If you’ve ever seen lizards scurrying up a branch or peeping its head from a flower pot, you may wonder what brought them to your yard. Just like any other cold-blooded reptile or wildlife, such as squirrels, possums, and even insects like sweat bees, they’ve come for food, water, and shelter. Knowing what lizards or any wildlife eats is the best way to either attract them or detract them from your yard.

You may be happy with what lizards eat

Having lizards in your garden can eliminate many pests you would otherwise be tempted to use harsh pesticides on. Why? Because a lizard’s food source consists of aphids which can kill your roses and other plants. They will also eat roaches that are so hard to get rid of they can survive a nuclear bomb and can be seen around 1000 feet from Hiroshima. Lizards will also gladly take care of crickets, mealworms, spiders, flies, and many other insects!

bearded dragons eating cricket in front of white background

While having lizards take care of these insects may sound like heaven, their taste expands to fruits and vegetables. You can use fruits and vegetables to lure lizards into your yard simply by placing a few slices of apple or honeydew melon out. Other fruits and vegetables include lettuce, celery, blueberries, and yellow squash.

If you decide to use fruits and vegetables to attract lizards, remember you will be attracting other wildlife as well.

A study by the U-C, Berkeley, found another reason to want lizards in the garden. It can neutralize Lyme. nsf.gov had this to say

“A previous study by UC-Berkeley entomologist Robert Lane found that a protein in the Western fence lizard’s blood killed Borrelia bacteria. As a result, Lyme-infected ticks that feed on the lizard’s blood are cleansed of the disease-causing pathogen.”

Lizards and salmonella

Just as lizards do a great job getting rid of unwanted pests from your garden, there is a very good reason you may want them gone and not because they’re eating the apples from your tree or nibbling in your garden. Lizards carry salmonella.

What is salmonella?

Humans usually become infected with salmonella through contaminated foods – foods such as beef, poultry, and eggs that are improperly cooked or foods such as vegetables that have come in contact with feces.

As you can imagine, humans can get extremely sick once infected. Symptoms include stomach cramping, diarrhea, dehydration, and fever. Many healthy adults can recover within a few days of contact, but others aren’t so lucky. According to cdc.gov there are approximately 1.35 million infections, 26,500 hospitalizations, and 420 deaths in the United States each year.

The cdc.gov also estimates that there are 50,000 to 80,000 cases of reptile salmonella each year.

How to Catch Salmonella from a Lizard

While salmonella isn’t dangerous to lizards, humans need to be careful, and it isn’t too hard to become infected.

Contact

You can become infected simply by holding a lizard. Why? Because lizards carry salmonella on their bodies. If you hold a lizard and then place eat or place your hands in your mouth before washing them, you’re in danger of coming in contact.

Indirectly

If you touch anything where a lizard has been, flower pots, water bowls, grills, etc., you are in danger of becoming infected. According to health.ny.gov, anything a lizard touches can be potential for infection.

Salmonella can survive for:

89 days in tap water
115 days in pond water
4 to 32 hours on surfaces
up to weeks on clothing

Due to the ease of becoming infected with salmonella, it is not recommended for children to keep lizards as pets or pick them up in the garden. You should always wear gloves when handling lizards and wash your hands and clothing afterward.

Lizards Bite

Carrying disease is not the only problem with lizards. Another reason you may want them gone is that they bite! Just like any other living creature, lizards have a defense mechanism when they believe they’re in danger. Most garden lizards aren’t going to do any damage, but you’ll feel the sting. If you live in areas where the lizards get a little scarier than your average backyard gecko, you may run across a Gila Monster.

Gila Monster - Most poisonous lizard — Gila Monster – The most poisonous lizard

The Guinness Book of World Records has named the Gila monster as the most poisonous lizard comparable to the toxicity of the venom of the western diamondback rattlesnake! It resides in Arizona, Mexico, Utah, New Mexico, and Nevada. While their bite is painful, luckily, no one bite has ever resulted in death.

How to get rid of lizards

We know placing fruit and vegetables out will help attract lizards to our backyards, but what if we don’t want lizards? Just as there are ways to attract them, there are ways to deter them.

Strong Smells

Just like wildlife and pests that find their way into your backyard, lizards don’t like some strong smells such as onion and garlic. Spraying onion juice or garlic juice around the perimeter of your home and in your garden will help deter lizards. You can also place a few onion wedges or garlic cloves around the doors to deter them from entering.

Hot sauce, cayenne, and pepper are strong smells that lizards detest. Simply sprinkle a little where you see them.

Get rid of insects

If you see a large influx of lizards in your backyard, you may have an abundance of insects. Spraying with an insecticide will take care of the flies and aphids, and lizards as well.

Coffee Powder

Lizards don’t like the smell of coffee. You can sprinkle the coffee powder around where you’ve seen them or even use your leftover coffee in a spray bottle. For an added punch – mix your coffee powder with tobacco – only you may want to be careful, not only do lizards not like this solution, it can actually kill them.

Peacock Feathers

Birds are lizards’ natural enemies, and a peacock gives a not-so-subtle reminder that danger could be nearby. Hanging a peacock feather around doorways or laying them where there are lizards tells lizards to move on to someone else’s home.

A Peacock feather is used to deter lizards

Pets

Having a cat is a sure way to eliminate any mice or lizards. Unless you have wild cats in your backyard, they won’t eat them, but they’ll play with them until they’re dead. Not too many cats can resist chasing after a lizard.

Ice water

It may sound like something out of a SciFi movie, but it is true – cold water will completely immobilize lizards. In tropical climates such as Florida and Houston, where the weather is perpetually hot and humid, lizards are unlikely to deal with cold, but when temperatures drop into the freezing, lizards will fall from branches and trees completely useless.

How to catch an unwanted lizard

If you see a lizard you want to get rid of running around your garden or one that has somehow gotten inside your home, put some gloves on and grab a cold cup of water. Place the ice water on the lizard. Once the lizard cannot move, pick it up and place it in a well-ventilated container and release it wherever you wish.

Conclusion

Lizards will eat everything from insects to fruits and vegetables. There are many arguments as to why lizards should or should not live in your home and garden. They are beneficial in getting rid of controlling insects, and they can even neutralize Lyme. On the other hand, they carry salmonella, which isn’t dangerous to lizards, but dangerous to humans. It is up to the gardener if they want to attract or lizards to their backyards or not.