Last updated on October 11th, 2022
Owls are excellent hunters, and if you think they have poor eyesight, you are mistaken! They have excellent low-light vision.
I learned all of these from a friend who is an ornithologist, and she has a pet owl. She told me several things about the eating habits of owls. Owls are carnivorous and excellent hunters.
They can eat rodents and insects, but do owls eat lizards?
Owls do eat lizards, especially at night because lizards will go out during hours of darkness for insects to snack on and owls are able to see quite well in dim light conditions along with their astute hearing abilities which allows them to identify prey moving around during the night.
Are lizards poisonous to owls?
Contrary to popular opinion, lizards are not poisonous reptiles. In reality, they are pretty harmless. However, only three lizards are venomous, namely, the komodo dragon, the Gila monster, and the Mexican bearded lizard.
Lizards tend to avoid confrontations, and you will find that they will hide in remote corners of your house.
Birds like owls and eagles often hunt reptiles like lizards and snakes, providing them with a full stomach depending on the size of the lizard captured.
Do owls hunt for lizards in the wild?
Owls do hunt lizards in the wild especially at night since they have excellent night vision and several species of nocturnal lizards, including house lizards, can be found near the light bulbs eating insects.
This is where the owls can quickly identify the reptiles and grab them with their talons.
How do owls hunt lizards?
Owls can swoop down and grab the lizards with their talons. But once they have grabbed their prey, it is necessary to kill it.
After that, the owl can tear its prey apart with the help of its beak and talons. Otherwise, the owl can also crush the skull of its prey with its sharp talons.
But it depends on the size of the lizard and whether the owl will tear it apart or crush its prey.
Usually, it tears apart smaller lizards and crushes the skull of larger ones.
Do all owls eat lizards?
All owls eat lizards irrespective of their size but the smaller owls will hunt small lizards.
This means the more giant barn owls, snowy owls, and even the more diminutive elf and burrowing owls can hunt for lizards.
Do pet owls eat lizards?
The answer to this question is yes. My friend said she is often faced with worried owl owners whose pets have inadvertently eaten lizards.
They come to her worried, thinking their pets would go into toxic shocks.
If you own an owl and it is eating a lizard, do not deter it from doing so.
It responds to its natural hunting ability and will not go into a toxic shock.
Instead, it would help if you were happy that your pet owl is behaving normally and that it is keeping your home free of pests (Unless it was your pet lizard that was eaten, my condolences).
Do baby owls eat lizards?
Owls learn to hunt from a young age. Sometimes the mother owl carries the food it has caught to the nest to feed the young.
As a result, lizards often feature in the mother owl’s food for her young ones.
Similarly, once they learn to hunt, baby owls look for lizards and similar reptiles to hunt. One of the reasons is these reptiles are nocturnal and easier to hunt.
In addition, the smooth body of the lizard is easier to crush and tear apart.
All of these make them prey for the fledgling owl. Therefore, baby owls can eat lizards and are often found hunting for lizards.
Why are owls obsessed with lizards?
Lizards are the natural prey of owls. In the wild, owls hunt for lizards, snakes, rodents, and other similar creatures.
However, if you have a pet owl, you will find that it will be obsessed with the lizards in your house.
This is because owls do not hunt in the morning but at night and when it comes to the house lizards, they are primarily nocturnal.
Hence, you will find that your pet owl will become quite excited at night in the hope of catching the lizards that it knows will come out of its hiding spots at night in search of food.
Can you keep lizards away from your home by keeping an owl?
Owls are natural predators of lizards. If your home is infested with lizards, one way to reduce the infestation is to get a pet owl.
You need first to find a convenience store that sells good breeds of owls that are ideal as pets. Barn owls make excellent pets.
Once you keep the owl as a pet, you will find that the number of lizards in your home has reduced.
The bird’s feathers are sufficient to deter the lizards from entering your home.
Other than that, if you have a trained owl, you will find that it is hunting the lizards in your home, which can help reduce the number of lizards in your home.
Are lizards given to owls that are bred in captivity?
There is no record of lizards or reptiles being fed to owls bred in captivity.
When birds are kept in aviaries or bred in captivity, they must be careful about their food. They are given a diet of fish and meat.
When bred in captivity, owls are given fish as large as ospreys.
Moreover, giving lizards to owls bred in captivity is not feasible as the bird would not like to eat the flesh of the dead reptile. It prefers to hunt lizards and eat the same.
Do owls eat geckos?
Owls do eat geckos because they’re more active during the hours of darkness and geckos will venture out at night in search of food, making them suitable prey for owls. The bumpy skin of a gecko cannot withstand the sharp talons or the beak of an owl.
Unless the gecko is well camouflaged, it cannot escape the excellent low-light vision of an owl. If an owl can identify a gecko, it is suitable prey for the bird.
Curious about what animals eat lizards? Check out that article we wrote for more information.
Further reading:
Taylor And Francis Online – The occurrence of reptiles in Barn Owl diet in Europe
