From UroWiki
An example of
Taraxicum officinale, a real dandelion
General warning
When picking any wild-picked plant or flower intended for human or uromastyx consumption: always make absolutely sure that it has not had weedkiller sprayed on the area where it is growing, for at least the past two years. Many weedkillers can take a long time to disperse their poisons, and any growing plants may be tainted. This applies more to gardens and urban areas than to countryside, but it is still a danger in any environment (farmers may want to kill weeds in the countryside, for example).
False dandelions
An example of
Tussilago farfara or
Coltsfoot, the 'false dandelion'
There are many small, yellow-flowering plants that look rather like dandelions. They are not, however, and many of them are not even in the same species of plant. Common lookalike plants to watch out for include:
- Hypochoeris radicata or Catsear, which actually bears the common name "false dandelion" - note that this one is known to be safely edible
- members of the Tragopogon family
- members of the Asteraceae family
- a common example is Tussilago farfara, better known as Coltsfoot, pictured to the right
Making sure
Taraxicum officinale and
Tussilago farfara compared from the side
As a point of fact, there are literally hundreds of small yellow-flowered plants, many of which look similar to or almost identical to the common dandelion (
Taraxicum officinale). Some of these are human-edible and therefore probably also okay for your uromastyx, but unless you are absolutely, completely, one hundred percent sure that you know which is which, then the best advice is not to feed them at all. You can find some websites detailing lists of dandelion lookalikes; a search for
false dandelion is a good place to start. Any other foods should be compared against the
list of food on the wiki.
