That's great that you've gotten your Plated treated and it and your other animals are clean. If you can find a mate though, I would still suggest housing them separately. They are fairly solitary. They will tolerate another Plated Lizard of the opposite sex, but will seldom use the same location to bask or hide. Also, males can relentless in pursuing females when they first meet. Also, females will vigorously bite back at the males to defend themselves from unwanted attention.



If housed together, they need to be separated for feeding or they need to be individually tong-fed. Even with tong-feeding they routinely bite each other while attempting to steal food if housed together. The only Plated Lizards that can typically be kept together with out much aggression are the G. flavivulgaris [Yellow-throat], and G. validus [Giant]. I've found keeping my Plateds separate works the best.



I built a special cage with a removable divider. I introduced them into the cage with an opaque divider to begin with, then followed that up with a clear divider for a while. I usually remove the clear divider in about late February or early March. I allow them to be together for about two weeks or so, then I separate them. I've seen copulation every time, but usually once there's been one instance of copulation that's it. The female wants nothing to do with the male and he can't get anywhere near her.



So far I've not had any success with the eggs I've gotten over the last three years. Two years the eggs were desiccated before I found them. The third year I had three great eggs, but two got too wet in the first week and spoiled and the other was fertile but had excess humidity issues as well and it didn't make it the full distance. They tend to need very high ambient humidity early in the incubation, tapering off towards the end.



Anyway, that should be enough for you to chew on for a while. Post on here and let me know if you were able to find a mate. Feel free to email me if you need help designing a breeding cage or with any other aspect of breeding or housing.
-----
Matt Campbell

Animal Keeper, Small Mammal/Reptile House

Lincoln Park Zoo Chicago, Illinois



Assistant Curator

Wildlife Discovery Center at Elawa Farm

Lake Forest, Illinois

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