Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi All again,

Right where do we start coz I got loads of them for you.
The 2 collared that i have got were both purchased from a local reptile dealer.

One is deff a male and the other one they think is a female, Not 100 % sure though.
Either way they get on really well.
The female (tan,yellow,brownish colour) is a little scatty still but is calming down.

Still jumps at the glass quite a bit though, especially at night before she goes to sleep, Any ideas to stop her doing this ??

and the male is what you guys call a yellow head a think, body and belly and legs very green and his throat and head are yellow.

He is very chilled out and very easy to handle.

I will get the pics i took developed soon for you to see.
but i am not sure as they are so different that they are both the same species, they are deff both collared, but i have noticed that there are several sub species as well,

will they breed together assuming they are opposite sex's ???

with this brumation thing, all new to me, I think the 2 that i have are still pretty young.

They are 3.5 inches in length and the tail and the body totals 10 inches.
I asked the pet shop how old but they didn't know, any ideas or hard to say ??

If they aren't to young what do i need to do to chill them enough as the normal temp of the viv with no heating at all is 60-65 which isn't cold enough is it ??

I am a little bothered as to me they dont exactly seem big animals to not feed for so long.

the viv has baggs of places to dig, hide etc so that should be ok.

also if they do breed, how can i tell if the eggs are infertile ???

sorry for bombarding ya all with the above, but you all seem to know ya collared pretty well. and Over here in UK there is not a whole lot of breeders or suppliers etc that seem to know much about em.

Cheers

Funky

first of all, you mention they were both purchased from reptile breeders...if that is the case, the easiest way to find out species identity would be to ask the petstore who their breeder contact is, because you would like to know this information.

The jumping at the glass is pretty normal, but sometimes putting a border around all the sides will help calm a lizard down. I'm not sure it that works, but it does keep us from seeing it happen LOL.

I think the 3.5 inches is a bit on the small side to brumate, but if they decided to quit eating naturally, just let them do so for a couple weeks. I think the 60-65 degrees you mentioned would work fine for a few weeks of brumation. If you plan to brumate more than 2-4 months, I would have to say the best bet is getting a small refrigerator, or using a cooler with blue ice packs wrapped in towels. I believe Will Wells using some slightly damp sand with some flat rocks to burrow under, then the blue ice wraps are placed on the surface. They can then be swapped out every couple days. I use the small refridgerators, and can maintain a steady temp between 40 and 45 F.

Infertile eggs usually have a way of letting you know they are infertile...the fertile ones are more questionable (if that makes any sense). Infertile eggs can be small, but most time they will be more yellowish color when first laid. By yellowish, I mean when you shine a small pen light through the side, you will only see yellowish color. IF it is fertile, you should see some light pink veins, and a darker pinkish/red area call the embryonic disk. This should be at the top portion of the egg.

Anyway, that is all I can think of right now.

John Eddington

Thats great John.

thanks very much for that mate, I am with you on the fertile or infertile egg thing now.

They both are eating still, especially the male, much more so than the female, although i have read elsewhere that the females grow much slower so i assume this is natural.

I will ask the place where i got them but to be honest it's not your nice personal breeder type place and is more of a business, so would be suprised if they can help,

I will get some pics of them nice and close up for here and of their nether regions and someone hopefully will be able to confirm.

I'm sure we can tell you 100% if they are indeed C. collaris. Oh yea, brings up one more point. There are no more recognized subspecies of the collared lizard. Those subspecies of the collaris were all tossed together with collaris. So the C. collaris auriceps is now plain and simply C. collaris too. On this board, we call the auriceps (for the most part) Utah Yellowheads, and some of the other incredible yellowheads from Texas/Oklhoma we refer to as aquaflames.

I see you are allowing Johne to PRETEND he has collareds again, Hahhahahahah ! (Kidding)
Look forward to your pics, But in your description, your male sounds more like an aquaflame than the utah yellowhead.
If he has a yellowy dewlap, (skin hanging from the throat) probably aquaflame.
The Utah yellowhead has a blue beard (in throat area)
We will see when we see the pics , for sure, but they sound MIGHTY NICE !!! Have a good day Funky, Eve