Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Manny, Mark, Tom, and anyone else who wants to check out some pics. Manny here are some pics. Two of them are the females that layed last year of which you have the offspring. One is a group shot of two males and two different females. The males are on the bottom of the pic. I am not tring to be a basher on the wc pecs or there offspring because some of them are beautiful. I have had experience with both adults and captive born babies and I have to echo Toms sentiments. I also agree with Mark if your only interested in a display animal and breeding their fine. Unfortunately for me I am very hands on and like to handle all my animals. So the true yellow pecs are a perfect fit. By the way Manny I have several different bloodlines of the yellow pecs. Ps.I do know how to spell trying

Maybe next year when I find out more about my job and its security. Tom

Man I’m drooling all over myself. Lol Those are some extraordinary animals.

Before you read below I just want to make it clear that I do not take anything as bashing, and that what I am writing below is for educational purposes only.

There is no debate that captive born animals, especially animals that are born from parents of multiple captive born generations are tamer and “ domesticated.”
I see much of a difference between the Banana Pecs and my Wild caughts. It’s like the Bananas are a whole different sub-species themselves. It almost seems like they are even shaped differently. The bananas are much tamer and handleable than the ones I hatched or caught from wild sources but, there are no absolutes. Every animal has a different personality or behavioral characteristic which can make it easier or harder to tame. One of the older bananas that I have is fairly aggressive. I know that if I handled him more he may tame down more but it is not guaranteed. I know of people who have raised some of the WC babies and they have come up to be very tame animals. So there are some factors that come into play when taming these guys down e.g.:

Species/sub-species, (Ctenosaura species can be hard to tame depending on the sub-species for example, C. Similis which tends to be meaner than hell! “sometimes”.)

WC/CB, ( CB is better than WC of course WC blood is “wild.” CB is domesticated; the Dictionary describes it as: to tame (an animal), esp. by generations of breeding, to live in close association with human beings as a pet or work animal and usually creating a dependency....)

Individual Personality, ( every animal has a different personality which may make it easier or harder to tame. This is true for both WC and CB)

Sex, (Males seem to be more aggressive and energized than females, especially during breeding seasons)

Frequency in handling ( The more you handle the animal may determine how tame the animal will be. But the outcome depends on the animal’s age, personality, species, sex, etc. There is a greater chance that the animal being tamed will have better results if they are raised independently, the younger the better. )

Like I said above there are no absolutes. In response to Mark’s statement” Have you ever seen a wc tame green iguana?” Yes, I had one adult male that I caught that was tame after I put a lot of time into him. But that was one in 3000+ I have gone through. I have also seen a WC Adult female Pectinata. These are examples of Personality.

So WC’s are diamonds in the rough. Maybe we will see some nice animals in the future that came from the ones I caught. Maybe they will also be used to strengthen the blood lines of the CB’s.

The animals were beautiful when you sent them and I know that ctenos have a tendency to be mean and skittish as heck and I was full aware of this when I purchased them. I was not trying to bash you in anyway-you have always been honest and a great person to deal with. My problem is about all I have time for is to feed and clean so the animals only get interaction when I am trying to catch them to remove for cleaning. So with that said they never really learn to trust me if you get the connection there??? I hope. LOL. I guess I sounded a little disappointed in my post but that was not my intention. I am the opposite of Kelly I never handle the animals except when needed. Plus the fact that they are in a room that I only go in to feed and check on them. They never get any other interaction with people so that is a big problem with all the lizards I keep. Even my captive born ctenos are somewhat apprehensive when I enter the room. It is just their demeanor and that is understood. Please do not take offense-I would recommend you to anyone interested in purchasing any of the animals you offer. I guess the only point I would try to get accross to others reading is that ctenos are not for everyone. They take a lot of patience and time. Also I understand that even animals in the same genus have different personalities so it is possible to get a little gem of a cteno. Respectfully, Tom Greb

Have you considered using hide tubes for your ctenos? I just cut Black pvc black pipe about 16 to 18 inches long. The ctenos use them as thier safe spot. When I need to maintaince the cage, I do it in the evening or early morning when they are in thier tubes. I just take out the whole tube with the iguana in it. 99% of the time the iguanas stay in thier tubes and not run out. This is much less stressfull for the lizard. I even do this for tame ones. This is only used for indoor animals and not outdoor animals.

I remember us talking about that and I did it with the quinques and it worked great(hung them right on the branches). But never did it with the larger ones. I am using these 10" round clay tubes cut in half and man are they heavy, too heavy. I think I will switch over the the plastic. It would work really good because, especially with the odies, they like to sleep up high and I can suspend them up in the branches. Tom

They are not porous, thus are easier to clean.

I did not make the long post because I thought you were trying to bash and am in no way offended. I need to ask the questions. I am supplying people with these animals and want to know how they are adapting to captivity. I do not want to just sell them and forget it. I really care about the species and would like to know everything that would strengthen my knowledge of them and hopefully pass on the information. Maybe some of us should get together and write a book.

I get questions about acclimating and taming animals all the time. There is very limited information out there on Ctentos. People usually have to go through pieces of information that were meant for the husbandry of other types of iguanas and apply them to the Ctenosaura species. There are a lot of people that view this forum that do not interact. They just read and go or e-mail some of us for information. (They probably bug the hell out of Mark M since he has a Kick butt site.) Although they are not in their native habitat, I have had the opportunity to work with and observe both C. Similis and Pectinata in a wild environment which would be geographically impossible unless I lived in Mexico. (If I was a Mexican I would probably only know Spanish and communication with you all would be a disaster. (Lol)

Although I am not an expert, I’d like to pass on my experiences although it is difficult to put everything into words. I sell many pectinatas each year and I wonder what they are going to turn out to look like. I also do not have the time to get a whole lot of handling of them, so some of my animals are also flighty or do not like to be handled. I would be interested in seeing some pics of the individuals I sent you. I have gotten some feed back from people that bought babies from me overseas that some turned out to be yellow or high white animals.

I do a lot of surfing on the web for Pectinatas and have read some articles from studies that the Mexican Government has done.( I wish I knew how to read German now) One of the things I read is that the author had successfully tamed Pectinatas to a certain degree, by placing them individually in tubs with no hide boxes. He then proceeds to feed the iguana bright foods that stimulate a feeding response. I tried this method with some adults but used a large fish tank instead of a tub. I had a WC adult female Pec eating rat pups and grapes from my hands within two weeks and she would not run from me nor act aggressive. I also tried with a large male who wanted to eat my fingers instead(lol) but at the end, with the use of some tongs, he too began to trust me. (and still wanted to eat my fingers from time to time.) Crickets also work great for babies and juveniles. I guess the key to this method is not having any screened surrounding area where the lizard will bang itself trying to flee. If it finds itself cornered it will have to hold its ground and experience the reality that you are not a threat.

Another method is what I have set up for some of the adults outside. I have built them a micro-habitat that resembles what they live in here. The only down side to this is that I cannot interact with them. They live like they were living in the wild. They come out to sun and eat, but quickly retreat to their holes when they see me. I only get to look at them through a window which they cannot see me through on the other side.

I really didn't theink you were offended but after reading my message I thought it might lead someone to believe I might have been. Another method that has worked well for calming down flighty animals is to put them in high traffic location. Eventually they will realize that all the people walking by in front of them do not pose a threat. For instance years ago when I bred Australian water dragons. The babies would be really flighty so what I did was take them to a friend of mine that owned a pet store and he put them on display. Within 2 weeks they calmed right down and would eat, bask etc no matter who was in front of the cage watching. The first couple days they stayed in the hides all the time.