The Bearded Dragon food you need to give your pet ranges from insects, to fruits, to live animals to vegetables. They have decent appetites and aren’t very picky eaters but there are some foods you should never give your Beardie because even one meal of that type can cause a fatal reaction.

While it’s okay to give your pet certain insects, you should not give him a firefly (also known as a lightning bug) for any reason whatsoever. The firefly has a chemical-the luminescence-in the body that will kill a Beardie.

Other Bearded Dragon food while not immediately toxic like the firefly can lead to a chain of events that will kill your pet. Foods like insects with hard shells don’t move through the Beardie’s digestive system and end up causing an impaction to develop. An impaction occurs when the food gets stuck.

Never give your Bearded Dragon food that could have contact contamination with any type of pesticide. That means don’t go picking up food for your Beardie from the yard. While Beardies love to devour insects and they’re considered a staple in the diet, not all insects are safe for them.

Some spiders are deadly for the Beardie and some are not, so better to avoid them than to risk it. Also, avoid iceberg lettuce because it can upset their tummy and cause diarrhea which can lead to dehydration and death. Avoid any food that’s too large for the pet as well as furry rodents since the fur is hard on their digestive system.