Hello, I found a little lizard/gecko.

Hello,



So I live in AZ and my mom was cleaning out the garage and she told me she found a little lizard, she pushed it with the broom to get it to move and run away and she told me it was being slow but she left it alone. She started doing other stuff and came back, started cleaning near the trash where a can was on the ground, she stepped on the can and kick it away and turns out the lizard was underneath the can, she said he looked stunned and barely moved so she put him in a flower pot to let him recover.

I got home from work and went and looked at it, he has all his limbs and his entire tail, no cuts or holes or anything missing, I picked it up and touched its legs and it ran off my hand and fell back in the flower pot. But I was able to see that he moved all his limbs and ran a good speed off my hand. After I was messing with him and touching him, but when I first picked him up and was looking at him he just wouldnt move. Since then I picked him up one more time to really look at his patterns while I was trying to figure out what kind of lizard he was and he just sat in my hand without me having to actually hold him.

Its really cold out and in the garage, I dont know much about lizards but I know that reptiles will go into a hibernation like state if they are in the cold? I have two aquatic turtles, RES. If their water gets too cold or they dont have a heat bulb their body temp goes down and they wont eat. So I grabbed the little guy and placed him in a rubbermaid container, gave it my turtles old heat lamp, covered the bottom of the container with soil, built him like a little cave with flat rocks from my turtles outside pool, put a jar lid full of water in the corner, cut up some dry meal worms (again my turtles) and placed it on the soil near the water outside his little cave thing.



I dont plan on keeping this guy as a pet, I really dont know what to do, I believe it is a mediterranean gecko. I went on some identification site for lizards and it came down to a couple choices, looking at all the pics, this guy looks like a mediterranean gecko. Hes kinda slow, Idk if its due to the cold and who knows how long he was in the garage, he is like a medium size. Maybe it was when my mom accidentaly hit him. I want to let him go but I feel bad because its so cold. I guess I would like to feed him a bit and give him a couple days to really make sure hes ok then let him go again. Hes obvisouly finding food out there somehow if he is a medium size. I joined this site to just really learn as much as I can and hear from more experienced owners on what I should do.

I would personally let him go back outside and just leave him alone.

Welcome to the forum! I'm Kathryn.

The best thing to do here is probably to release him outside your garage. Reptiles go into brumation, not hibernation. Their bodies slow down and they don't eat as much. They don't go into such a deep sleep as animals that hibernate do. It doesn't harm them in any way.

Because this gecko came from the wild there is a high chance it could have parasites. I would be careful about your RES'. Wash your hands very thoroughly if you handle the gecko before handling your RES'; but I wouldn't handle the house gecko very much. Keep them in separate rooms as well.

The fact that he was trying to run is a good sign that he most likely didn't hurt himself.

I think a member on here has a house gecko though (Mediterranean). Kermit is her username. Maybe send her a private message to ask her about it.

Good luck in whatever you do!