Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Found these two tonight while night hiking in Phoenix...This has to be a rare site in the wild, and I'm so excited I got to witness it...Don't know if they were fighting or there was attempted copulation happening, but I hope you enjoy these pictures as much as I enjoyed taking them....This first one is them sizing each other up....

At one point one Gila flipped the other on his/her back...here's the shot...

These two were oblivious to our presence, and we were oblivious to anything other than them!

See how the tails are aligned in this photo? One thing is for sure...if this was an attempted mating, the female wanted no part of it!

The female seems to be saying: "Get OFF of me!!!"

I took quite a few more, but didn't want to take up all the space here.. An amazing spectacle that I feel privileged to have witnessed...I hope you've enjoyed it as well....

A western diamondback with a HUGE meal in him...Not sure if you can tell by the picture, but he must have eaten a small rabbit because this guy was BLOATED....

You can just barely make out the lump if you look to the left in the photo...My buddy had seen this guy a couple of days prior, and said the lump was even bigger then....

So dang cute....

One of the coolest arachnids around.....

Wow! That is awesome! I love Gilas! They are one of the reptiles I would most like to see in the wild. Nice pics!

Don't know why the pics arent showing up for me just the word image???
Todd Hughes

Thats really incredible!!! Thanks for sharing those photos!!! Kevin

Wow! Great photos. Unless you're incredibly lucky those Gila copulation shots are probably once in a lifetimeWe just came from AZ and got skunked road cruising and night hiking. Woulda been a blast to see just one Gila, let alone copulation. We were in Carefree and near Gila Bend. We did see lots of lizards, but were hoping for snakes.

reako45

That's an amazing series of photos and a once in a lifetime event!

I saw a talk on captive breeding Gilas many years ago froma guy who used to be at the houston zoo (it may have been Karl Peterson?). The guy doing the talk had observed this sort of agonistic behavior several times in his captive herd. It was reported to be male:male fighting in the literature, but he found all the fights he observed were between the females, not the males.

Sometimes females would grab another female's leg and spin mercilessly, really tearing up the other girl.

I don't know if that is what you witnessed, but the clear lesson is don't assume there was a male involved just because there was an agonistic interaction.
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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas