Posted by:
St.Pierre
at Wed Mar 31 13:14:59 2004 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by St.Pierre ]
All red tegus are the same species (Tupinambis rufescens)
The bloodlines that the Argentine red tegus are all bred from in this country where from tegus that were imported from Argentina years ago (Argentina hasn't exported red tegus in roughly 15 years or so)so the only babies available from these bloodline are all captive bred ones and most of those are babies that were bred from captive born animals (selectivly bred over multiple generations ) Adult males of this bloodline are all very brightly colored red , females can range from a brownish red to red to a almost purple red as the founding animals of these bloodlines were all from pretty much the same geographic area .
The Paraguay reds began appearing in the US mostly within the last 6 years . Most of these were imported as adults and sub adults and a few juveniles(wild caught adults and sub adults are not tame and are not easy to establish so many breeders including myself did not want to work with them - I don't like to get bitten =P) Since not many people wanted to purchase mean tegus the recently started shipping babies/juveniles and many of these have ended up in pet stores (thes baies are not selctivly bred just as Colombian tegus are not selectivly bred) . The adult I have seen must be collected over a wider geographic area as I see a much larger variation of color in these animals - not all males are red , I've seen them range from dull brown to red but color really isn't the problem with these lizards . The problem with these babies stems from the fact that red tegus are very sensitive animals and do not do well if their diet and enviroment isn't kept just right - they dehydrate very easily and the younger they are the faster they will dehydrate and this alone makes a wild caught one much harder to establish than a captive bred animal. On top of that when wild caught animals are stressed the parasites they have get out of check and can compound their problems , one trip to the vet is not enough to correct this problem.(a good example of this is baby savannah monitors - there are tens of thousands of these babies imported yearly yet very few of these mature into adults in captivity)
There are very few breeders that consistantly produce red tegus but they are out there if you look . Since not many are produced they almost never wind up in pet stores (these lizards lay half the eggs as Argentine black and whites do and require 2-3 times the maintenance so the few people who are breeding them have a lot more cost in their babies and are not so inclined to give them away to a pet store)If you want to be reasonably sure that you are getting a true captive bred one a pet store is not the place to look. Another good way to tell is that red tegus are very seasonal breeders and only lay eggs that hatch in the summer months the US winter is Paraguays summer so when you see a tiny hatchling in a pet store in our winter months there is little chance that it was captive born.
I guess you could easily compare red tegus to Condro Pythons and Brazilian Rainbow Boas when it comes to establishing them .
All are delicate and the people who have the best luck raising them are the ones that raising captive born babies . When it comes to delicate animals you really do get exactly what you are willing to pay for .
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Stella St.Pierre
www.bluetegu.com
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RE: Which is the best pet? - St.Pierre, Wed Mar 31 13:14:59 2004