Do beardies hunt minnows in the wild?

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loljelloclowdz

Juvie Member
I would never give Mari minnows because of the bones, but do bearded dragons hunt minnows in the wild? I’m at Norris Lake in Tennessee and Mari keeps looking frantically back and forth at the bluegill juvies/fry that keep swimming up to a floating stick by the dock. I am gonna get some pictures and upload them, give me a minute or two, it’s funny watching her. ?

Edit: I’m out in the middle of nowhere so the image uploader won’t work. I need to get to civilization for that. It’s weird that I’m able to use this website at all.
 

CooperDragon

BD.org Sicko
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I'm not sure about that. From what I've observed though, all of my dragons have gone nuts around fish. Cooper kept trying to attack a fish bowl that we were babysitting once. Darwin found a dead catfish along the mississippi a few years ago and kept running over to it to investigate like it was the most amazing thing he'd ever seen. There does seem to be some natural interest about fish but I don't know how that translates to their natural habitat.
 

williamk34

Hatchling Member
Depending on where the dragon happens to be in Australiathere is quite a bit of different species of Australian darkling beetles that they can choose from some of the beetle larvae mealworms and superworms do occur in Australia just different types to the North American. When it comes to fish only really the coastal beardies would deal with them there's more rivers lakes and of course the ocean and there in their woodland. most captive bearded dragons today are mixed with a different geographical areas of bearded dragons so I imagine that some of the traits from the coastal dragons that is probably how come a lot of captive dragons tend to go crazy for fish. fish that has washed up that is small enough for it to eat it would be a very nutritious snack since it is a lot of nutrition for very little effort. I would also say that the shine of the fishes scales and their movements tend to trigger the predatory response in them bearded dragons are opportunistic and anything that they can bite and crunch down on and get down there gullet they will happily do so. In the wild they primarily eat insects and plant matter but if they come across a small bird that they can easily take down or a field mouse tiny lizards etc they will definitely do so. there's also a chance that in the case of Darwin if the fish was actually large enough and actually not moving it's most likely just the curiosity causing that. He would probably start eating a bit of it if you would have let him small birds tend to be scavengers in a lot of areas that the bearded dragons are in naturally so he could have approached the dead animal thinking that eventually a small bird might land on it and he would get an easy snack. finally also have to consider that they are pretty territorial not tolerant of other males and when it comes to most of their territory they also share it with a few different species of monitor lizards ackie monitors in particularly are rivals for the same food they will also pray on each other's Young so he might have just been claiming the fish and looking if anybody would dare come over to it so he could beat them up lol
 
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