Three Pets That Are a Bigger Deal Than They Look

A cheap baby lizard. A small, colorful skink. A parakeet barely bigger than a lovebird. None of these three look like they come with real strings attached. All three do.

One of the three stories is a familiar one. The green iguana is the plant-eating version of the tale already attached to the savannah monitor and the Argentine tegu: a big lizard sold as a small, cheap hatchling, which outgrows every setup bought for the baby. The skink and the parakeet carry strings of a different kind.

Green Iguana: the baby doesn't predict the adult

A $30 iguana hatchling gives no hint of what's coming, a 6 to 7 foot adult with real claws, a genuine tail-whip, and a temperament that shifts noticeably during breeding season. Inadequate care is so common in this species that an estimated 70% of captive iguanas don't survive their first year. What sets the iguana apart from the monitor and the tegu is the menu and the climbing. Green iguanas are strict herbivores, and dark leafy greens such as collards and kale should make up most of an adult's diet, dusted with calcium to hold a calcium to phosphorus ratio of at least 2 to 1. The insects and meat that suit a monitor are the wrong food here. Heat is set by the same logic as any big arboreal lizard: a preferred zone of 80 to 88°F across the enclosure, a basking spot of 92 to 95°F, and height to climb to it, because an adult, tail included, reaches 6 feet or more.

Green Iguana Cost · Handling · Health Issues · Enclosure Setup

Fire Skink: colorful doesn't mean handleable

Bright red, black, and gold banding reads as friendly and approachable. What's actually underneath that coloring is a skittish, fast, burrowing lizard, a real step away in temperament from the docile blue-tongued skink, despite both wearing the name skink.

The care sheets call it a look-but-don't-touch display animal, and the reason is where it lives. A fire skink spends most of its time in and around its burrows, so the enclosure needs 4 to 6 inches of diggable substrate kept at 60 to 70% humidity, in a tank no smaller than 36 by 18 by 18 inches. An owner sees it at the surface when the setup is right, and hardly at all when it is not. The other string is the calendar: a well-kept fire skink can live 15 to 20 years, and captive-bred animals are more active and personable than wild-caught imports.

Fire Skink Cost · Handling · Health Issues · Enclosure Setup

Quaker Parakeet: small bird, serious fine print

A parakeet-sized bird that talks like a parrot four times its price, builds nests unlike any other parrot species, and, in a meaningful number of states, isn't legal to own at all. Nothing about this bird's size suggests any of that.

Legal status comes first because it decides everything else. Quakers are illegal to own in a number of US states and need a permit in others, the result of the feral colonies they have established across the country, so the check with a state wildlife or agriculture agency happens before the bird comes home. It is the only parrot that builds its own stick nest instead of using a tree hole, and those nests can become massive. Where the bird is legal, the commitment is long: 11 to 12 inches of parrot that lives 20 to 30 years and tends to bond closely with one person.

Quaker Parakeet Cost · Handling & Legality · Health Issues · Cage Setup

The common thread

Small, cheap, or approachable at first glance describes all three of these pets, and predicts almost nothing real about keeping them. The iguana's price says nothing about its adult size. The fire skink's color says nothing about its temperament. And the Quaker's size says nothing about its talking ability, its unusual nesting instinct, or whether you're even allowed to own one where you live. Read the actual guide before you judge any of these three by their cover.