A reptile's substrate does two jobs at once: it has to suit the environment the animal actually needs, and it has to be safe if a piece of it is swallowed by accident.

Komodo's Beech Chips are a wood-chip substrate suited to reptiles kept in an arid setup — snakes, lizards and tortoises are all named as suitable — and Komodo say it also works in a semi-humid enclosure. It's sold in a 6-litre bag.

• 6-litre bag
• Suitable for snakes, lizards and tortoises
• Designed for arid enclosures; also usable in semi-humid setups
• Beech wood chip substrate

On what's missing. Komodo haven't given us a particle size, a dust rating, or handling guidance for this substrate, so if you're keeping a species sensitive to fine dust or need a specific chip size, it's worth checking the bag itself rather than relying on this page alone.

Who it's for: keepers of arid-setup reptiles — snakes, lizards or tortoises — wanting a wood-chip substrate rather than sand or bark.