Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Well, not so much as strange, more like curious.
I frequently take my Water Dragon from his vivarium, and let him run around my room.
At times, he just likes to sit down on my bed. When still, he occasionally sticks out his tounge and touches the tip of it to my pillow, bedsheets, or myself.
It's rather cute, but I can't think of a reason for him doing that.

He just explores his surrondings and uses the help of his tongue for smelling.

BTW, free roaming normally is stressful -physiologically and psychologically- and can be dangerous.
I would strongly recommend to avoid it.

Ci@o

Ingo

I dont believe that free roaming is stressful. Maybe to some dragons who have a shy or timid dimeanor, but for some, they like to run around a room. I would probably only suggest the room that the dragons viv is in, that way they have pretty much seen what the room looks like and is comfortable in it. My adult female loves coming out and running around the room. She even climbs up to her favorite place in the closet and falls asleep! Now if that aint comfortable I dont know what is. She is very trusting and never tries to hide or get away. If my wd's ever show any signs of stress, they go back in the viv, but I only have that problem with my juvie male, who has trust issues because he was a rescue, other than that, my female enjoys it.

I agree. I do not want to sound disagreeable with Ingo, but some dragons are different than others.
My dragon likes to try and climb into my hamper, but he ends up choosing to rest on my pillow instead.
Or on my head. Which unfortunately, he tends to confuse with a toilet sometimes.
My dragon has shown no signs of stress before when let loose in my room, and he seems utterly content. In my opinion, I believe he enjoys it more than being in his vivarium.

I think some enjoy it very much as well. If they are freaking out and running around like a chicken with its head cut off, and turning dark brown-black, than I would say he's stressed and probably needs to go back in the viv. I think some reasons of possible stress from being let out, is people doing everything to fast, like letting them run around first time, when they should be held right next to the enclosure first couple times, and then venture out alittle bit. Than again, like said, its all about the temperment of the dragon, every one is different.

Yes, my lizard is very happy when out of his vivarium. Whenever I'm alone in my room, I close the door so no other animals can get in, and he likes to roam around.
He especially likes to stay on my bed, and on my pillow. Which is were he touches his tounge alot, unfortunately. ^__^;;
The only time my dragon gets stressed in when another animal comes in the room for attention. Mainly the cat. My wd just crouches down, hiding, and waits patiantly for the cat to leave, which she does, so all goes well. ^__^
Exactally how many water dragons do you have? I'd love to get more.

WDs are not very flexible with regard to their behaviour. Taken out of their habitat they do experience stress. No doubt about that.It is well known that detecting stress levels for lizards by just observing their behaviour can be extremely misleading-even for experienced ethologists.
Believe me, if you would check corticosterone levels of your WDS during -and long time after!- free roaming, you would see that they do experience very (!) significant stress.
Researchers even found that only temporarily taking lizards out of their habitat without performing prolonged handling or even being close to the lizard imposes more stress than such intuitively much more dramatic events like autotomation or toe clipping for id. purposes.
From a biological point of view there is no benefit at all connected to free roaming but a lot of potential risks are associated. Hence I strongle recommend to avoid anthropomorphistic interpretations of lizard behaviour and to not allow free roaming.
Maybe reading this may help to give you an idea:
Langkilde, T. and Shine, R. (2006)How much stress do researchers inflict on their study animals? A case study using a scincid lizard, Eulamprus heatwolei.
J Exp Biol.;209(Pt 6):1035-43

Ci@o

Ingo

I will check that out then, thank you.

And the benefits of keeping them cooped up in a cage all their life is better huh........ mine will continue to free roam. As for your question floss, I have 2, healthy, beautiful, happy dragons.

Definitely! Keeping them lifelong in an enclosure which imitates all necessary aspects of their natural habitat is way better than regular free roaming. Lets talk again in 15 years. I heavily doubt that your free roamers will then still be alive. I know of quite a few non-free roamers which are now in their twenties. The sad thing is that you will see negative effects of regular stress situations only after a prolonged exposure and then its almost always irreversible.
When I mention apt housing, I am of course not talking about 100g tanks.
An apt enclosure for WDs should significantly exceed 400g.
I strongly recommend to read the specific primary literature and to not rely on your personal impression for evaluation of the stress status of your animals. As I quoted above, this can be extremely misleading. Believe me (Yes, I do read the papers and I know what I am saying ,... I do have a phd in biology...and I do have published several well accepted books on herp husbandry...So I guess, I should know what I am saying).
I am not kidding. Free roamers are everything but lucky reptiles.

Ci@o

Ingo

Ok, guess we will talk in 15 years than, but what is there to prove that it died from stress? The enclosure I house mine in are 6'Tx4'Lx3'D
So, how old are your dragons?

Oh yeah, and imitating its life, does not count, because waterdragons dont live in a 6 foot area its whole life in the wild.

Yes, but they do live in a very restricted territory and they only move that much around to find all the necessities of live.
And if they find them within a range of 100g, its fine for them and they would hardly leave this area even in nature.
To give you an idea, hiow thismay look like, look at my basilisk tank (click to enlarge)

Ci@o

Ingo

I used to take my water dragons outside, but found that it was quite stressful for them. Even though they didn't show obvious signs of stress (just little subtle signs) they were much more relaxed in their cage environment. I'm sure that part of it is that when you take them out of their safe environment they immediately have to be on guard for predators and other critters that invade their "new" habitat....so they are always ready to be defensive...and that HAS to put up their stress levels. When they are taken out of their cages, they have to look for a place to go where they will feel safe IMHO. I don't take them out of their cages to explore anymore and I don't take them outside either. (It might be different for them to be in another cage that they were used to outside.)

I agree with Ingo regarding the stress.

I have a comment. I am not a fiery about the topic as some people, but I would like to say that I have a female WD who is about two and a half years old, I have had her since she was a few months old. I have a tall enclosure for her that she enjoys but I do handle her occasionally. When I see that she is in an exploratory/active mood I open her cage and I have a little ramp for her. She goes out of her cage on her own, even to the point of clawing at the bottom of the door where the ramp is until i open her cage. She wanders around the house, especially likes sitting by the windows. She stays bright green and looks around a lot. She "licks" certain areas a lot (including me) and after an hour or so returns to her cage, at which point I lock it. I never try to approach her quickly, I let her come to me if she likes. Since she is used to me and to human contact, this made it easy for us when she was laying eggs and needed to be rehydrated and medicated daily. I think it depends on where you live (I have no kids or other loud pets in the room when we interact) and whether you do it with consistency, how you handle the reptile (pulling on tail vs. letting them come to your hand), how much time you have for your pets, etc. I also enjoy occasionally hand feeding my wd worms, but most of the time I let her catch her food. This is a picture of CeCe my wd a long time ago, back when I thought she was a boy!