Capsaicin-treated bait trials for Argentine Black and White Tegu lizards in Georgia and Florida, USA 2020-2021

Invasive Argentine Black and White Tegu lizards (Salvator merianae) are trapped with chicken eggs when populations are discovered in the United States. Unfortunately, non-targeted mammals are trapped in tegu lizard traps which reduces trap efficacy. We evaluated if non-target mammal captures could be reduced by coating the chicken eggs with a known irritant to mammals (capsaicin) while maintaining a highly desired bait for tegu lizards. The data set quantifies trap disturbance by non-targets species and efficacy of capsaicin coated eggs as bait in live traps set for Argentine Black and White Tegu lizards (Salvatore merianae). The dataset consists of three live trapping experiments to test if 1) trap disturbance by mammals habituated to eggs without capsaicin from previous trapping efforts decreased when capsaicin-coated eggs were deployed (experiment 1), 2) mammals not habituated to eggs as bait (either treated with capsaicin or not treated with capsaicin) disturbed live traps at the same rate as those habituated to eggs in experiment 1 when presented with either capsiacin-treated or non-treated eggs (experiment 2), and 3) tegu capture rates were different when capsaicin-treated eggs were deployed in Florida (experiment 3).