Mine's a moody bugger. Sometimes yes and sometimes no. All depends how warm he is. If you get him early in the morning he's usually pretty calm. But in the afternoon's he'll do just about anything but bite to get away from me. Mine's about 22 inches in TL so I try to avoid getting whipped with his tail if I can help it... As for food you can feed them just about anything - some will even taken a vege mix. Mine doesn't though. I feed mine mainly large roaches....