Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey guys, we all know how we suffer through the waiting to be able to sex our vestigium offspring as they are not as easy C.collaris. Okay many of you know one of my offspring from last season, Chicory, looked just like her mom Chia, yellow.

When Chicory was pretty small yet, I looked at her vent area and saw 2 large scales like my adult male. Okay everyone I spoke with said ahh you know ya can't really go by that with these guys and I agreed.
As time went on this year Chicory has been a young replica of mom and I considered her a pretty yellow female. OKAY... this is where it all changes, Chicory is now 13 months old and within the last month has been developing black speckling on her gular/throat area like a MALE, yet still looks just like mom. There is a big difference in the yearlings and I NEVER saw YELLOW male, yet if the gular is an indication of things, seems Chicory is male...... open for thoughts/debate lol

Here are some photos first is of "Mom and Kaboom her sibbling", the next 3 are of Chicory and you will notice the throat/gular area becoming black speckled, also how different the 2 sibblings are.

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PHEve / Eve

I don't have a gender guess, but s/he is very cute!

Well, I have had a few in my lifetime, so that doesn't make me anywhere an expert: But for the sake of conversation, a little time down the road will tell.

1. In the second picture (now this is just me) do I detect a small area near the vent that could be.....?

2. The body and the head looks to tip on the males side, the female has a smaller more thin head than the male (often) and the females body type looks different, this guy has long lankey arms (typical of youngins) and a short body, this lends me to believe possible male.

3. Here is my speculation, if these lizards are territotial (and I believe in nature they are, you see males with females but normally males are not close to one another) If this male is around another or other males, he may be mimicing a female in colors as younger Collaris, but the gular is indeed starting to be questionable, however the collar is not very pronounced, which while that leads one to go the other way this could be tempoorary due to dominance of other animals it is around--thats my best long range guess. One thing about me Eve-At least I have an opinion and like the Spiny's (HE,HE)hope I am wrong, a nice female in the batch would be awsome.... Hey so there you have it from my perspective.....

4. Last thing does it try and display dominant behavior activity?
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www.phrynosoma.org

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signature file edited. [phw 11/14/04]

simple as that. I've seen female C. vestigiums with significant black pigmentation, but never in that location on the throat. Color alone has proven to be unreliable as an indicator of gender with this species. Chicory's gorgeous mom is a perfect example!

Brock Nelson

adult male C. vestigium

Hi Brock, very nice to hear from you. Well when I saw the black speckling appearing on the throat I was also sure that a female would not have this, and I spoke to Will today about it. Funny how this developed so (all of a sudden). Chicory shed and wa-la it began to appear.

Also like I said the vent area looked male since Chicory was at least 5-6 months old. Just like my adult males, 2 very large scales.

Have you ever seen a light yellow male like this? He is not darkening up at all, so you think he will just look like Chia?
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PHEve / Eve