DavidAlthough lizards are cold-blooded like snakes and do not give off body heat, younger ball pythons are known to eat anoles.
My ball python has fed on house geckos on a few occasions too.
So, nothing is impossible and some animals are just eccentric.
Can Anoles Be Housed With Ball Pythons?
Not at all. Never house different species together.
Remember, anoles and ball pythons have different care requirements, plus they’d stress each other out all the time. It’s best to keep different species separate.
Yes, that’s right. It would be almost impossible to house a group of anoles with a royal ball python and still maintain the health of both species, for the following reasons:
Anoles need very high levels of UVB light, which could potentially translate to problems for the nocturnal or crepuscular royal python unless you were setting up the enclosure with a proper day/night cycle (which I’d recommend for day-active lizards anyway). The way to work around this is to provide the BP with various secure, dark hiding spots that let it crawl into complete darkness during the day if it wants to hide.
Both species need a reasonably warm basking spot, but the anoles require this at the top of their enclosure, near the UVB lighting, and only during the day – they will want a nighttime temperature drop down to room temperature. But, your royal ball python would require the same heated basking areas closer to the ground (where it will spend most of its time) and ideally should not drop to room temperature at night. A way that might work around this is by creating a floor-level basking area with a heat mat near one of the hiding spots, or possibly under a “false floor” in a burrow sort of situation.
Anoles lizard breed are active and will need a tall, wide enclosure, with plenty of climbing opportunities, including small branches to perch and bask on. A royal python is a very heavy-bodied snake for its size and is likely to break any narrow branches if it is climbing around at night (and yes, they can and do climb in the wild … especially males, who appear to specialize in eating nestling birds and bats – but they might not pass up a sleeping anole, either). Small, secure hiding places for the anoles would be required, and substantial branches for the royal python to climb on as well as branches more like “treetops” for the anoles.
ALSO SEE: Do Ball Pythons Eat Each Other?
It is a common truth that almost all anoles in the pet trade are wild-caught and may be carriers of parasites – and if you’re housing them with a specie like a ball python which is from the opposite side of the world, it may become ill via contact with the anole poop and pee in the water or if your royal python eats them.
Housing two or more animals together needs a much larger enclosure than a single animal of that species would need since your animals need more room to get away from each other. If I were theoretically going to try to work around all the problems that housing royal ball pythons and anoles together would cause, I’d be looking at an enclosure that’s a minimum of 5′ wide, 4′ tall, and 3′ deep – for a single royal python plus a small group of anoles. I’d also be looking to use live plants where possible and a bioactive substrate – and would be specifically trying to source *captive-bred* and therefore EXPENSIVE anoles.
Housing them separately means that it will be much easier to house and adequately care for the animals.