We were chopping up some greens for the pets ( in general, only things we know they can eat ) and we were wondering if beardies can eat hot peppers ( jalapenos, cayenne, ect. ) . I have been looking on reptile sites one after the other and have found hardly anything about peppers except bell peppers ( which Toothless eats occasionally. ). Anyone know if they can or have a site I overlooked?
Welcome to the boards Dragoncrazed! This is a really good question! I'm honestly not sure... Most fruit plants rely on animals of some sort to eat them so that the seeds can be dispersed and most plants do have fairly specific pollinators and dispersers. From just a VERY brief bit of reading, I found that some birds appear to be immune to the effects of the heat in certain hot peppers and are therefore the primary dispersers for these plants. They are likely hot to mammals because most mammals do have a tendency of masticating the seeds while eating the fruit (particularly the softer seeds of the hot peppers). Reptiles are fairly related to avians on a phylogeny... but I'm not sure if they are both immune to the heat. I know it is generally recommended against feeding items that are known to be toxic to birds (i.e. avacado) to herps, but I'm not sure how similar their taste buds are otherwise. For this reason, I'd say avoid feeding the hot stuff just to err on the side of caution but I'm not sure if anyone has actually tested this!
