When I was a kid I use to buy a Green Anole(I actually thought it was a chameleon) at the County Fair every other year. For about a 2 dollars you could get a Anole on a leash with a safety pin attached to it and a pack of about 25 mealworms. You would attach the pin to your shirt and walk around the house with your new found friend. When I wasn't carrying him around, mom let me attach the leash to a house plant. He would eat flies that would land on the plant(not a very good idea) and I would feed him a daily a non-gut loaded mealworm(very fatty). Most of the lizards I owned only lived about 1 1/2 yrs. Needless to say we had a lot of little graves in our back yard.
As I got older I read up on the little fellows and found that there's a better way to keep them and they'll live a lot longer. Here's what I've learned: Anoles should live in a minimum 10 gallon aquarium for 1-2, but larger is better and necessary for groups of 3 or more. The substrate can be soil (without perlite), peat moss, or orchid bark. You should try to create a semi tropical environment (not rain forest) with daytime temperatures of 75-80 F and a humidity of 70%. Several plants should be provided (potted will make maintenance easier) and branches for basking are essential. Those rubberized bendable branches would be great for this use. Normally Anoles won't drink water from a dish, so their cages or plants should be misted twice daily and the anoles will get their fluids by licking droplets off leaves. As for their food, live crickets (gut loaded and supplemented with vitamin/mineral mix) and sometimes
meal worms(as a treat) are normally fed, and wild caught insects can be offered too if confident that they are pesticide free. But how would you know that unless you raised the bug yourself. Just a thought. I hope this will help you get started. - Chicojo
