Where is the green anole legal?
Anolis carolinensis. Restricted in 1 of the 9 jurisdictions checked. Every entry quotes the rule it comes from.
Interactive map
How to use this page
- Click or tap any state to see the rule behind its colour, the citation, and a link to the regulation itself. Tap it again to clear it. By keyboard, tab to a state and press Enter or space.
- The answer appears directly under the map on a phone, and in the panel beside it on a wider screen. Alaska, Hawaii and DC sit out of position so they stay clickable. City rules, New York City among them, cannot be shaded on a state map at all and are in the list below.
- Every restriction is written out below the map, one row per state. Open a row for the wording of the rule. That list is the same information as the map, in a form you can search with find-on-page.
- The chips at the foot of the page switch animals, A to Z. The map, the list and the counts all follow whichever one is selected.
- On the colours: flat grey was read and had no rule, dotted was never read for this animal, and hatched means the rule does not resolve either way. The first two are easy to confuse and mean very different things.
Select a state for the rule behind its colour. Alaska, Hawaii and the District of Columbia are drawn out of position so they can be clicked. 9 of the 51 jurisdictions we cover, the 50 states plus DC, have been read for this animal, so the 42 dotted ones are a gap in our research rather than a finding of no rule.
What the colours mean
- Banned (1)No legal way to keep one, and no permit to apply for.
- Permit requiredLegal, but you need a permit or licence before the animal arrives.
- Conditions applyLegal without a permit only if a stated condition is met, such as a generation, a size or an indoor-only rule.
- UnclearThe rule genuinely does not resolve for this animal. Ask the agency before relying on it.
- No restriction found (8)This jurisdiction was read for this animal and nothing in it restricts one.
- Not checked yet (42)We have not read this jurisdiction for this animal. It is not a clean bill of health, it is a gap.
Choose an animal (A to Z, 52 of them)
Every restriction on the green anole
1 of the 9 jurisdictions checked restrict this animal in some way. The rest had no rule we could find. Open a row for the wording of the rule and the citation behind it.
Hawaii
Banned§ 4-71-6.5
The introduction into Hawaii of live animals or live non-domestic animals as defined in this chapter is only allowed: (1) For those animals on the list designated as conditionally approved and dated November 28, 2006, or on the list designated as restricted entry, dated September 25, 2018
Hawaii runs an inverted rule, and this is the clause that creates it. Introduction is allowed only for animals on the conditionally approved or restricted lists, so an animal on none of them is barred by default rather than left unregulated. The Iguanidae block on the restricted list names Anolis equestris, the knight anole, and stops there. The green anole appears on no Hawaii list, so it is barred by default even though it has been established in the wild across the islands for decades. Absence from the lists here is a ban, not a gap.
How this rule works: The rule text the three species lists hang off, and the part that explains why Hawaii answers differently from everywhere else. Two things matter. § 4-71-6.5 allows introduction only for animals on the conditionally approved or restricted lists, which is what makes an unlisted animal barred by default rather than unregulated. And § 4-71-2 defines a set of domestic animals, the European rabbit among them, then says that as used in the chapter the word animal means non-domestic animal, so the lists never reach those species at all.
Hawaii Administrative Rules Chapter 4-71, Non-Domestic Animal Import Rules, § 4-71-2 definitions and § 4-71-6.5 permitted introductions →Past the legal question? See the green anole profile.
How to read this
Two of the shades mean very different things and are worth telling apart. A flat grey state was read for this animal and nothing in it restricts one. A dotted state has not been read for this animal at all. Coverage runs from two jurisdictions to fifty-one depending on the species, so on a less-researched animal most of the map is a gap in our work rather than a finding, and it should not be taken as permission.
Even a flat grey is not a guarantee. It means no restriction was found in the specific body of law checked for that state, which is recorded alongside each jurisdiction. Cities and counties regularly ban animals their state allows, and several states say so in their own rules.
Hatched grey means the rule genuinely does not resolve. Usually a definition arguably reaches the animal without naming it, and the honest answer is to ask the agency rather than to guess. Those entries are marked unclear on purpose rather than being rounded to a yes or a no.
Every entry links to the regulation it came from. None of this is legal advice, laws change without much notice, and the agency that issues the permit is always the last word. For the federal layer and how state schemes are structured, see the exotic pet legal hub.