Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was reading something and was wondering if there is a difference in argentine black and white tegus and columbian, meaning, can they be housed together and breed together, what i was reading made it seem like they cant. Which is prefered? Thanks everyone!!

I'm still a bit of an amature, but I'm fairly certain they can't breed. And if they did, I'm willing to put money on them being unhealthy and/or sterile.

As for which is preferred, I believe most people prefer the Argentine because they're quite a bit more docile (And I've heard some people claim they're more intellegent.)

Although my 15 (or formally 15 inch until the tail thing happened.) Columbian is very tame. He'll occasionally be a butthead and run off like mad, but 9 times out of 10, he's dog tame.

Thanks for the quick response. Do you know if there's any significant way of telling if they are columbian or argentine? thank you!

I'm new to all this too,but you might want to check the AGAMA INTERNATIONAL web sight. They explain two ways of telling Colombians from Argentines. One way is to check the scales on the top of the head (the Argentine has beaded scales), the other way is to count the number of scales between the nostril and eye scales

Thanks for the quick response. Do you know if there's anyway of telling if they are columbian or argentine? thanks again!

Hi,

Bert Langerwerf has a great section on the differences between colombians and argentines at www.agamainternational.com (I believe it is something to do with loreal scales)

Having only owned an argentine, I have very little knowledge on colombians, but from what I have heard there is a significant difference in size, and temperenment.

Hope this helps....

Ley x

One is a gold Colombian, the other an Argentine. I think you can see the differences.

columbians have one scale between the nostril and the eye (side of their face) and argentines have 2. look around at some pics online. you can kinda see mines 2 scales on the side of his face. hope this helped, justin