Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Ok, I'm sure I'll have more questions this week, but the 2 that come to mind.
1. Do mali uros sleep really soundly? My other herps (beardies, leopard geckos, crested geckos and white's tree frogs) startle anytime I walk in the room. But my newbie is going to sleep around 10 pm and I've peeked under his hidey to make sure he was ok, and he didn't even wake up. I had to watch closely to make sure he was breathing...just seems strange to me.
2. Do female mali's have noticable femoral pores as well? I've never paid attention to the few encounters w/uros to determine sex. I assumed since my newbie has some very noticeable pores that it was a boy.(That's how my leopard geckos are) But the more I read, the harder they say it is to tell males vs. females in mali's. It has quite a bit of yellow coloring on body down the feet, but the head and such is dark, but not black. If I get my camera working, I'll post pics and see if you guys can help me out. Until then, any answers for me??

All our guys sleep like rocks. At times, they'll choose to not come out for days. We start to worry. Then, out of the blue, they return to "normal." We see the same behavior in all of our snakes. Their rhythms can be confounding but, I reckon their internal clocks tell them what's best.
As long as there's no weight loss, my guess is that all is good. Sure wish I could sleep late & have my food handed to me!!
Sigh...

>>Ok, I'm sure I'll have more questions this week, but the 2 that come to mind.
>>1. Do mali uros sleep really soundly?

- - - -I've had some that will give you a tail-swat if you disturb them at night. others are dead to the world, or frozen in that postion. it might depend partly on temperature and how long since the lights went out, but some of it is an individual thing.
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>>2. Do female mali's have noticable femoral pores as well?

- - - - They can be substantial but if all other factors are equal (age, time of year, diet and health, etc) then the males will tend to be bigger. that doesn't always help determine sex if you have only one lizard to look at or you haven't seen a lot of them at different ages. The sexing rules are all just tendencies and averages. Females are "usually" not yellow but there are plenty of exceptions. Even the most yellow "male-mimic" females don't have totally black heads, but can be dark brown, which can be a very minor difference. The earliest scientific descriptions even got it wrong. It helps to consider both the pores and the hemipenal bulge size. For some specmens under 10 inches you just have to wait and see.

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Lindsay Pike
Urotopia Uromastyx

Thanks for the help!! My uro is about 6 months old (8 inches or so). I breed leopard geckos, so I was used to no femoral pores in females.

This uro has HUGE femoral pores, but no sign of a hemipenal bulge. The head is not solid black-and I'm not going with color to tell sex anyway.

Guess I'll just have to wait and see, maybe pick out a gender neutral name like Terry or Bobbie