The Emerald Swift is a small and attractive lizard native to the cloud forests of southern Mexico and Central America. Males are bright green with a striking blue underbody, while females are more brown in color. In captivity these lizards do well as long as their needs are met and maintained.
Average Size and Life Span
This type of lizard is small, only reaching approximately 7-8 inches as adults. Males may be slightly larger than females. Most swifts are acquired as adults, so it can be difficult to determine age. You should expect a life span anywhere from 5-10 years.
Feeding
These lizards are solely insectivores, and will feed on a variety of appropriately sized insects. As a general rule, an appropriate sized insect should be no longer than the distance between the animal’s eyes. Providing a variety is the key to health, so offer crickets, young Dubia roaches, mealworms, and waxworms.
Feeding
These lizards are solely insectivores, and will feed on a variety of appropriately sized insects. As a general rule, an appropriate sized insect should be no longer than the distance between the animal’s eyes. Providing a variety is the key to health, so offer crickets, young Dubia roaches, mealworms, and waxworms.
Providing your Emerald Swift with supplements is VERY important and essential to living a healthy life, free of health problems. A quality Calcium powder supplement that includes Vitamin D3 should be dusted over the feeder insects at every feeding. Also, a quality multivitamin powder supplement should be dusted over the feeder insects at one feeding each week to avoid any vitamin deficiencies.
If feeding you frog live rodents, do not leave them unattended. Live rodents can injure the frog, sometimes fatally.
Cage Setup and Maintenance
The minimum cage requirement is a 20 Long tank so that there is enough space for thermoregulation. A larger cage is always recommended, especially when housing multiple animals. Two males cannot be housed in the same cage, but any other combination is acceptable, as long as the tank size is appropriate based on the number of animals.
The terrarium should have a substrate that will help maintain humidity, and is a couple inches thick so they can burrow into it. Cypress mulch, bark, or Eco Earth, along with areas of moss are good options. Provide several hides, branches, and fake plants throughout the cage, as swifts are arboreal and love to climb and perch up on higher areas. A large, shallow dish with a constant source of clean, dechlorinated water should be placed in the cage to aid with keeping humidity up.
Once the terrarium is well established for your swifts, maintenance requirements are fairly low. Do a full clean out of the tank once a month, or at least once every two months. You should spot clean the cage in between full clean outs. It’s very important that you only use a reptile specific cleaner when disinfecting their tank.
Maintenance
There are quite a few substrates that work especially well for frogs, and choosing one is a matter of personal preference for your animal's setup. Provide a deep substrate, such as commercial mulch, bark chips, large gravel, sphagnum moss, or sterile potting soil.
Spot-clean your frogs enclosure as necessary. When feces/urates/uneaten prey items are present, remove them as soon as possible. Clean & disinfect the water bowl on a weekly basis. Depending on cage conditions, remove all substrate & cage furniture and completely disinfect using a 5% bleach solution approximately every 30 days. Rinse the enclosure thoroughly and allow to dry before replacing cage furniture & your dragon.
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Lighting and Humidity
Emerald Swifts need to be provided with a UVB bulb with a tropical rating. This bulb should be changed every 10-12 months, whether it’s still lit or not.
A heat bulb and ideally an under tank heating pad should be placed at one end of the tank, creating a hot area that reaches approximately 90 degrees. The rest of the tank can stay fairly cool, around 70 degrees. Don’t guess at the temperatures. At least two thermometers should be inside the tank: one on the hot side, one on the cool side.
Your tank’s humidity level should stay around 70%-80%. Keep a large water dish in the cage and keep the substrate damp, but not soggy. You can achieve this by misting the cage 2-3 times daily with room temperature dechlorinated water. A waterfall, fogger, or misting system may also be added to help maintain humidity levels. Again, don’t guess with your levels. Use a hygrometer to measure humidity.
Handling
Emerald Swifts are not aggressive and will rarely, if ever, bite. However, they do not appreciate handling and should only be observed and enjoyed inside the tank. Only handle when necessary.
Breeding
Swifts are often captured straight out of the wild. Captive breeding is not common, but not unheard of. These lizards have live young, so there are never eggs needing incubation. If you have a pregnant swift, make sure she gets extra food with extra supplementation. The babies will need to be separated once they are born and fed tiny insects, such as pinhead crickets and fruit flies, once or twice daily.
Notes and Comments
Terrestrial frogs are sedentary, aggressive, gluttonous and cannibalistic when given the chance; awake during the day; can overpower and swallow prey almost their own size. The African bullfrog will bury itself up to its neck in leaf litter, and wait to lunge at its prey; in natural settings, bullfrogs will hibernate until the rainy season; unlike other frogs, males are larger than females.
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