Where is the green anole legal?

Any species of wildlife that is not specifically listed in Chapter W-11 as Domestic or Unregulated or in Chapter W-07 as Appendix A or Appendix B, the species is regulated wildlife and a CPW license is required. CPW will not issue a license for private possession (eg pet) of regulated wildlife.

The anoles are on Appendix A as a family, Dactyloidae, but the listing carries the same qualifier as the rest of the lizard block, native only to the tropical and subtropical region, and CPW has read Anolis carolinensis as failing it. Its herpetofauna list records the species against Appendix A, B, 8 with the finding "native range outside tropical/subtropical", which is a determination against, not for. The green anole breeds up the southeastern United States well north of the 26 degree line Chapter W-7 § 700(G) draws, so the family listing does not carry it. That leaves it regulated wildlife with no pet licence available. This is the clearest case on the map of a family appearing on an allow-list without the species being allowed.

How this rule works: CPW's own page, with four downloadable lists, herpetofauna, mammals, birds, and fish and marine animals, each row giving a species and the regulation that decides it: Domestic, Unregulated, Appendix A or B, Appendix C, Regulated or Prohibited. Updated 1 May 2026. Not exhaustive, and CPW takes questions on unlisted species by email. This is the agency applying its own rule, which matters most where Appendix A turns on whether a species is native only to the tropics.

Except as provided in this subsection, a person shall not import into the District, possess, display, offer for sale, trade, barter, exchange, or adoption, or give as a household pet, any living member of the animal kingdom, including those born or raised in captivity, except the following: (A) Domestic dogs, excluding hybrids with wolves, coyotes, or jackals; (B) Domestic cats, excluding hybrids with ocelots or margays; (C) Domesticated rodents and rabbits; (D) Captive-bred species of common cage birds, including chickens; (E) Non-venomous snakes, fish, and turtles, traditionally kept in the home for pleasure rather than for commercial purposes; (F) Ferrets; and (G) Racing pigeons, when kept in compliance with permit requirements.

No lizard fits any of the seven permitted categories. The green anole is barred in the District for the same reason the leopard gecko is, and unlike New York City the District never has to reach a taxonomic question about the family Iguanidae, because it lists what is allowed rather than what is not. The clause is a bar with seven exceptions and no permit behind it: subsections (j)(2) to (j)(5) reach public zoos, federally licensed exhibitors, rehabilitators, veterinarians, shelters, and goats and sheep brought in to eat grass. There is no route for a private keeper.

How this rule works: A closed list and one of the shortest in the country. Subsection (j)(1) bars importing, possessing, displaying, selling, trading or giving as a household pet "any living member of the animal kingdom, including those born or raised in captivity", except seven categories: domestic dogs, domestic cats, domesticated rodents and rabbits, captive-bred common cage birds, non-venomous snakes and fish and turtles, ferrets, and racing pigeons. No lizard, no amphibian and no invertebrate fits any of them. Read from the D.C. Code rather than from a reproduction: the seven categories and their exact wording are what every cell in this jurisdiction turns on.

By Georgia Law, most native species of wildlife cannot be held without permits or licenses. These licenses are not issued for the purpose of holding native wildlife as pets. These restrictions apply to the various species of animal, regardless of the origin or morphology. ... The following list of species native to Georgia may not be held as a pet regardless of its origin or morphology.

Georgia handles its own wildlife separately from the wild animal rule, and the sentence that matters is "These restrictions apply to the various species of animal, regardless of the origin or morphology." A captive-bred animal from an out-of-state breeder is in the same position as one caught in a Georgia yard, and a colour morph is too. The green anole is on DNR's list of native species that may not be held as a pet. Licences exist under O.C.G.A. § 27-5-4 and DNR says in terms that they "are not issued for the purpose of holding native wildlife as pets". Worth flagging because green anoles are sold nationally as cheap starter lizards, and in the state where they are native they cannot be kept.

How this rule works: The agency page that answers the native half of Georgia, which the wild animal rule does not reach. It states the operative rule in one line, "By Georgia Law, most native species of wildlife cannot be held without permits or licenses. These licenses are not issued for the purpose of holding native wildlife as pets", and adds the sentence that closes the captive-bred argument: "These restrictions apply to the various species of animal, regardless of the origin or morphology." It then lists native species that may not be held as a pet, among them the corn snake, milksnake, garter snake, green anole, both hognose snakes, all four box turtles and the flying squirrel. Two limits are worth carrying: the list says of itself that it "does not include all native wildlife that is prohibited", and a separate paragraph names the natives Georgia does allow to be taken, "rats, mice, armadillos, coyotes, groundhogs, beaver, freshwater turtles, venomous snakes, frogs, spring lizards, fiddler crabs, freshwater crayfish, freshwater mussels, and nutria".

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.

NONGAME REPTILES ... LIZARDS Anolis carolinensis GREEN ANOLE

This is the state the anole is actually from, and it is the state where keeping one costs a licence. Rule 2.3 lists Anolis carolinensis by binomial as a nongame lizard in need of management, and 2.3(C)(2) sets the licence for possessing a nongame species for personal use: a resident needs a Sportsman, All Game Hunting/Freshwater Fishing, or Small Game Hunting/Freshwater Fishing licence, a nonresident an All Game Hunting licence. 2.3(D)(2) caps possession at twenty nongame snakes and lizards together and no more than four of any one species. The rule excludes commercially recognised colour mutants at 2.3(A)(1)(b)(iv), which is a strong sign that ordinary captive-bred animals are meant to be inside it.

How this rule works: The rule that answers Mississippi natives, and the one the dangerous animal rule never reaches. It covers thirty-two small mammals and all native reptiles and amphibians, names each species, and requires a hunting licence to possess any of them for personal use. mdwfp.com serves a cert without its GlobalSign intermediate; complete the chain rather than skipping verification.

No person shall transport into or have in his possession within this state any live wildlife or viable eggs thereof from without the state, except as authorized by an importation permit issued by the director

West Virginia’s importation section is the rule the rest of this column was written without, and it changes the answer for every exotic reptile and amphibian in it. W. Va. Code § 20-1-2 builds wildlife out of wild birds, wild animals, game and fur-bearing animals, fish, reptiles, amphibians, mollusks, crustaceans and all forms of aquatic life used as fish bait. The reptile and amphibian clause carries no nativity qualifier and no captive-bred carve-out, so a pet reptile or amphibian bought from an out-of-state breeder is live wildlife from without the state. A green anole is a reptile, and the WVDNR checklist of the state’s six lizards names the eastern six-lined racerunner, the northern coal skink, the common five-lined skink, the broad-headed skink, the eastern fence lizard and the little brown skink, with no anole among them, so § 58-73’s native bar does not reach it and the importation permit does. § 20-2-13 then bars both bringing that animal in and having it in possession within the state except under an importation permit from the director, and the permit is discretionary: the director may issue it, fix its terms and revoke it at his pleasure. How firm this is, both ways. § 20-2-4(a) independently makes it unlawful to take, obtain, purchase, possess or maintain in captivity any live wildlife except as the chapter or a rule provides, and § 20-2-4(b) says wildlife lawfully taken outside of this state is subject to the same laws and rules as wildlife taken within it, which closes the argument that an out-of-state origin puts the animal outside the chapter before it is made. Against that, the section is headed importation and certification and the body of it is disease control, fish pathologist certificates and inspection of imported shipments, with the only penalty clause written for coyotes. Nothing in Title 58 implements § 20-2-13 for anything but aquaculture, and WVDNR publishes no application for an importation permit. So this is a statutory permit requirement that is real on paper with its machinery not visibly in place, which is the same shape as the Minnesota breeder condition and is recorded the same way. Neither of West Virginia’s two species lists bars this animal. W. Va. C.S.R. § 74-1-3, the dangerous wild animal list adopted 5 April 2022, is a mammal list plus the Komodo dragon. W. Va. C.S.R. § 58-73 reaches native West Virginia reptiles and amphibians only.

How this rule works: West Virginia splits its animals by two definitions in one section. Wildlife takes in reptiles, amphibians, mollusks and crustaceans with no nativity limit and no terrestrial arthropod at all. Wild animals means all mammals native to the State of West Virginia, which is the phrase that decides every mammal here. § 20-2-4 bars possessing either except as the chapter or a rule provides, and § 20-2-51 is the only pet route, a two dollar permit from the director.

Anoline Lizards (Genera: Anolis, Audantia, Chamaelinorops, Ctenonotus, Dactyloa, Deiroptyx, Norops, Xiphosurus) except Brown Anoles (Anolis sagrei) or species native to Arkansas

Two exceptions, and the second is written for this animal: Anolis carolinensis is the only anole native to the United States, and the Arkansas Herpetological Atlas vouchers it in 29 of the state’s 75 counties across the Ouachita Mountains and South Central Plains. Off R1.01 it becomes a Code 09.14 native pet, six per household, either hand-captured in Arkansas or commercially obtained and captive born from a Commission-permitted Wildlife Breeder/Dealer or under a Wildlife Importation Permit. The first exception, the brown anole, is an invasive rather than a native, which is why the entry needed both.

How this rule works: Code 09.01 makes it unlawful to hold any live wildlife captive unless otherwise specified, and its exceptions include terrestrial invertebrates. Code 09.02 conditions non-native wildlife on sourcing and veterinary certification. Code 09.14 caps native wildlife pets at six per household. Chapter 01.00 supplies the two definitions that decide the rest: WILDLIFE reaches "all other wild animals, regardless of classification", and WILD means "living in a state of nature and not domesticated". Addendum R1.02 closes with "Species not listed in Addenda R1.01, R1.02, or R1.03 are prohibited until evaluated", so absence is a bar rather than a silence.

Green Anole Rule. It shall be illegal to sell or purchase any Green Anole (Anolis carolinesis) with a snout-vent length of less than 1 3/4 inches or an overall length of less than 5 inches with the tail intact.

Louisiana is the only jurisdiction on this map with a rule written for the green anole by name, and it is a size rule on the transaction rather than a bar on keeping: below 1 3/4 inches snout to vent, or five inches overall, the animal may not be sold or bought. The anole is also a Louisiana native, listed without qualifier in the § 101.I checklist while the brown anole beside it is marked "established nonnative", so the native provisions at § 101.J apply too: a basic recreational fishing licence for "collection and possession of native reptiles and amphibians for recreational purposes", and a Reptile and Amphibian Wholesale/Retail Dealer's Licence for whoever sells it, "regardless of the number of generations removed from the wild". It is not on the § 101.J.4 conservation-concern list, so it may be taken from the wild.

How this rule works: Rewritten in January 2025 and now one of the strictest reptile rules in the country. Three tiers: prohibited nonnative species, restricted nonnative species needing a permit, and a general rule that any constrictor over eight feet needs a restricted snake permit.

All Species in Genus Anolis (Anoles) Anolis spp.*

The genus is cleared outright. The green anole is not native to Maine, so the native-reptile provisions at 12 M.R.S. § 12152(1-B) and § 7.01 do not come into it, and Anolis carolinensis is IUCN Least Concern, so the asterisk does not remove it. The whole Reptilia section of the list sits under the heading "Captive Bred Origin Only", which is the condition on the clearance: a wild-caught animal of the same species is not unrestricted and falls back to § 7.06(4), under which an uncategorised animal may not be possessed at all.

How this rule works: The list 12 M.R.S. § 12152(1-A) requires the department to maintain and 09-137 CMR ch. 7 § 7.06(1) describes: species needing no importation, exhibition, propagation, research or possession permit, which pet shops may also trade. Dated 11 August 2017 on every page, and this is the version IFW still serves. Three headings do most of the work: Reptilia, Serpentes and Testudines each carry "Captive Bred Origin Only", and an asterisk on an entry removes anything on the USFWS injurious or threatened and endangered lists, in CITES Appendix I, or on the IUCN Red List as Endangered, Critically Endangered or Extinct in the Wild.

The commissioner must prescribe conditions and may issue permits to breed, propagate, and sell snakes, lizards, and salamanders. A snake, lizard, or salamander that is obtained from a permitted breeder or that was possessed before August 1, 2021, may be possessed as a pet.

Minnesota gets here in three steps, and the surprise is that none of them turns on the species being native. Section 97A.015, subd. 55 defines wild animals as creatures wild by nature and includes reptiles, with no geographic limit. Subd. 39 makes snakes, lizards and salamanders protected wild animals as whole categories. Section 97A.501, subd. 1 then bars possessing a protected wild animal unless the game and fish laws allow it, and this subdivision is the allowance. A green anole is a lizard, so the breeder-source condition applies to it as much as to a Minnesota native. Two things to know about how firm this is. The statute says the commissioner "must" prescribe conditions, but there is no snake, lizard or salamander breeder permit on the DNR's permits page, Minnesota Rules chapter 6256 covers only frogs and turtles, and no rule chapter implements the subdivision. And the DNR's own pet-trade page describes the change as reaching "wild collected Minnesota snakes, lizards, and/or salamanders", which is narrower than the statute's words and does not mention the breeder permit at all. So the condition is real on paper and its machinery is not visibly in place.

How this rule works: Subd. 8, added in 2021, is the pet reptile rule: the commissioner must prescribe conditions and may issue breeder permits, and a snake, lizard or salamander is possessable as a pet if it came from a permitted breeder or was held before 1 August 2021. Subd. 3 is the older, broader route, allowing special permits without a fee to possess wild animals as pets.

No closed season. All reptiles except those listed in (3) and (5) of this section shall have a year-round season. (2) Bag limit. The bag limit is 6 per day or in possession for each species allowed in section (1) of this section.

The green anole is an Oklahoma animal, which moves it out of the exemption at 800:25-25-3(c), since that clause is written for species "not indigenous to Oklahoma". What applies instead is the reptile and amphibian part at 800:25-7. Two provisions matter to a keeper. 7-7(2)(A) requires a resident or nonresident hunting licence of anyone "taking or attempting to take reptiles and amphibians or possessing reptiles or amphibians" that are land dwelling, which is a possession hook and not merely a collecting one. And 7-8 gives every reptile a year-round season except a closed list of twelve, with a limit of "6 per day or in possession for each species". Recorded as conditional on those two rather than as a permit, because there is no application and no discretion: a hunting licence is sold over the counter. 29 O.S. § 7-502(B)(4) separately exempts anyone possessing legally obtained wildlife "from a source other than the wild, as pets" from the statutory possession bar, which is why a captive-bred animal is not caught by the closed-season rule. Anolis carolinensis reaches into southeastern Oklahoma, which is what takes it out of the non-indigenous exemption. Oklahoma's closed list at 7-8(5) does close the season on four lizards, the Texas horned lizard, the side-blotched lizard, the checkered whiptail and the lesser earless lizard among them, and the anole is not one of them, so it keeps the year-round season and the six-animal cap.

How this rule works: The part that reaches Oklahoma's own herps, and the one that 800:25-25-3 does not answer. 7-7(2) requires a hunting or fishing licence of anyone taking or possessing a reptile or amphibian, 7-8 gives every reptile a year-round season at six per species per day and in possession with a twelve-species closed list, and 7-9 does the same for amphibians at four. 7-7(1) separately bars commercial activity involving wild-collected indigenous species.

No native reptile or amphibian, including parts, products, eggs, and derivatives may be sold, purchased, traded, exchanged, bartered, exported or shipped, transferred and/or re-homed, except:

The green anole is a South Carolina native, which is what takes it out of the pet-trade exemption. § 50-16-60 clears reptiles as a class from the import permit, and Regulation 123-151.4(I) then says that section "does not privilege" a native reptile: the 2021 rules control instead. 123-151.3(A) bars selling, purchasing, trading, exchanging, bartering, exporting, shipping, transferring and re-homing any native reptile, and its twelve exceptions do not reach a lizard. They are: transfers to the department, transfers authorised by other law, accredited zoos and research institutions, laboratory venom, non-native morphs of native snake species, three named snakes under 10 inches, three more under 20, the pine snake under 24, two named turtles from permitted sources, alligators, bullfrogs, and rehabilitators. So a green anole may be kept and may not change hands, and giving one away is expressly included in the bar.

How this rule works: The 2021 native reptile rules. 123-151.3(A) bars selling, purchasing, trading, exchanging, bartering, exporting, shipping, transferring or re-homing any native reptile or amphibian, with twelve exceptions that are mostly named snakes under a size limit. 123-151.4 adds possession caps for turtles, two for the eastern box turtle with shell notching and registration. 123-151.4(I) is the clause that matters most: the pet-trade exemption at S.C. Code § 50-16-60 does not privilege a native reptile.

A person without a nongame or nongame dealer’s permit may: (A) possess six or fewer specimens of a species of nongame wildlife listed in §65.331(e) of this title, provided the person does not engage in commercial activity involving the nongame wildlife; and (B) possess 25 or fewer specimens of a species of nongame wildlife listed in §65.331(d) of this title, provided the person does not engage in commercial activity involving the nongame wildlife.

Anolis carolinensis is on the § 65.331(d) list, and it is native across the eastern half of Texas, so a keeper may hold 25 without a permit but may not sell, offer for sale, exchange or barter one. The cap reaches captive-bred animals: § 65.325(a) says nongame wildlife "includes captive-bred nongame wildlife", so a pet shop receipt does not lift it. This is the animal on this map where the Texas cap is most likely to surprise someone, because green anoles are sold nationally as cheap starter lizards and the buyer is the one the cap follows.

How this rule works: The rule that decides a Texas pet question whenever the animal is native, and the one the dangerous wild animal statute distracts from. § 65.327(a) starts from a prohibition, "no person may collect, acquire, possess, import, export, cause the import or export of, or engage in a commercial activity involving nongame wildlife", and § 65.327(b)(3) then gives an unlicensed keeper two numbers: 25 of a species on the § 65.331(d) list, six of anything else. Three definitions carry the weight. § 65.325(a) says nongame wildlife "includes captive-bred nongame wildlife", so buying from a breeder does not lift the cap. The same sentence limits the subchapter to VERTEBRATE wildlife, which is narrower than the statute it implements, since Parks & Wild. Code § 67.001 says "vertebrate and invertebrate", and that gap is what leaves every terrestrial invertebrate outside the scheme entirely. And § 65.326(2) defines commercial activity as "the sale, offer for sale, exchange, or barter", so buying is not itself commercial activity, and § 65.327(b)(1)(B) lets a permitted dealer "sell lawfully obtained nongame wildlife to anyone". The two species lists are attached figures rather than statutory text: the (d) list names about 100 species, and the (e) list is longer and expressly "not limited to" what it names, so a native species on neither list falls to the six cap.

it shall be lawful to capture and possess live for private use and not for sale or export no more than one individual of any native or naturalized, as defined in 4VAC15-20-50, species of amphibian or reptile per physical address

The exotic permit table is the wrong rule for this animal. Virginia fixes native and naturalized status by an incorporated document, the department's List of Native and Naturalized Fauna of Virginia, and that list carries "Green Anole * Anolis carolinesis *", the asterisk denoting a naturalized species. A naturalized animal is expressly excluded from the definition of a nonnative (exotic) animal at 4VAC15-20-50, so 4VAC15-30-40 does not reach it and 4VAC15-360-10 does: one individual per physical address, live, for private use, and not for sale or export. That the cap binds a keeper rather than only a collector is confirmed from the other direction by the domestic animal list, which writes an express carve-out for "Domesticated morphs of red cornsnake ... visibly distinguishable from native red cornsnakes"; that exception would have nothing to do if ordinary keeping of a native herp were free. Checked against 4VAC15-360-10(A)(6) on this pass as well: that subdivision withholds the private-use allowance from the red-eared slider and from every reptile and amphibian Species of Greatest Conservation Need, and the green anole is on neither, so the one-per-address cap is the whole answer for it.

How this rule works: The rule the exotic permit table does not reach, and the one that answers a Virginia native or naturalized herp: one individual of any native or naturalized species of amphibian or reptile per physical address, live, for private use and not for sale or export. It covers aquatic invertebrates, amphibians, reptiles and nongame fish, and no mammal.

Reptiles (Reptilia). All Helodermatidae ...; all front-fanged venomous snakes, even if devenomized ...; all venomous, mid-or rear-fanged, Duvernoy-glanded members of the family Colubridae, even if devenomized; any member, or hybrid offspring of the family Boidae, including, but not limited to, the common or green anaconda and yellow anaconda; any member of the family Pythonidae, including, but not limited to, the African rock python, Indian or Burmese python, Amethystine or scrub python; any member of the family Varanidae, including the white throated monitor, Bosc's or African savannah monitor, Komodo monitor or dragon, Nile monitor, crocodile monitor, water monitor, Bornean earless monitor; any member of the family Iguanidae, including the green or common iguana; any member of the family teiidae, including, but not limited to, the golden, common, or black and white tegu; all members of the family Chelydridae, including snapping turtle and alligator snapping turtle; all turtles and tortoises with a carapace length of less than four (4) inches; and all members of the order Crocodylia ...

This one turns entirely on which decade's taxonomy the Code is using, and the article gives no answer. The reptile clause prohibits "any member of the family Iguanidae, including the green or common iguana". Anolis carolinensis was placed in Iguanidae sensu lato for most of the twentieth century, was moved to Polychrotidae in the 1989 Frost and Etheridge revision, and now sits in Dactyloidae. On the taxonomy current when this list was drafted the green anole is an iguanid and prohibited; on current taxonomy it is not one and the clause does not touch it. Nothing in the article dates its family names or says whether they float with revisions, and the Code elsewhere uses family names loosely, printing "teiidae" in lower case and calling hedgehogs Insectivora. Recorded unclear rather than guessing, because a green anole is a five dollar pet-shop lizard whose legality in the five boroughs rests on a 1989 systematics paper.

How this rule works: A city rule that is stricter than any state on this map, and it works in three layers. It opens with a standard rather than a list, deeming a wild animal to be "any animal which is naturally inclined to do harm and capable of inflicting harm upon human beings". It then adds, at (b)(ii), any wildlife protected or endangered under federal, STATE or local law, which imports New York State's protected wildlife scheme into the city wholesale. And it closes with 24 numbered clauses that work mostly by family: all cats other than Felis catus and their hybrids, all dogs other than Canis familiaris, all Mustelidae including the ferret by name, all squirrels, all marsupials, all large rodents, all Boidae, all Pythonidae, all Varanidae, all Iguanidae, all teiidae, all Chelydridae, all venomous spiders including the tarantula by name, and all turtles under four inches. § 161.01(c) is the short answer to what is left: gerbil, hamster, guinea pig, domesticated rabbit, and small birds such as parakeet, parrot, canary and finch.