Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My big male, * Chewalla * Looking quite handsome, even though hes shedding

Eve

~ Chewalla ~

By the way, do you have seperate setups for the boys? Do you have any problems with them fighting, etc...?

all the time. I orginally got another set up for Grebster when everyone said they would start fighting last year !

But they never did, so I have them together for now, Grebster sleeps on top of Chewalla. Then during the day I let them run.

And they even stay together then.

Eve

Nice chuck! I haven't visited this forum in awhile. I'm thinking about getting a pair of Chuckwallas going in the backyard now that I live in the Phoenix area. I caught some hathclings and raised them to adults about 10 years ago before devoting my terrerium space to collared lizards. Now I have a nice desert backyard that they could live freely in.

Reptile photos

Just kidding! Glad to have you drop by the chuck forum. Well I got out of the collareds I got from you. MAybe you know that chucks are my first love (haha) and I just could not devoted the proper time and care to the collareds. Every once in a while I try to branch out to something else and I find myself getting a little frustrated and end up just going back to ONLY chucks. But you are in the perfect enviroment now and in my opinion chucks are so much easier than collareds. There are some great localities there in the Phoenix area with beautiful redbacks. Hope to see you as a somewhat regular here and good luck with any chuck ventures. Tom Greb

I'm getting pretty fired up about getting some chucks. I have seen pcitures of the chucks in a mountain range 5 miles down the street from where I live and they have red backs. A few years back I was between Phoenix and Yuma and saw some awesome chucks that had brick red backs and black heads, tails and limbs.

Once I was at the Cargo Muchacho Mnts near Yuma and watched three chucks fight for about 15 minutes. They were hissing, circling each other and wrestling on the rocks. It was wild. The larger chuck fought off 2 males as a female watched nearby. After the two smaller males took off, the large male got on the rock near the female and started head bobbing.
One of the coolest things I've ever seen.

Will

I think the most desireable are the ones you saw with the solid brick red backs and jet black head, shoulders and limbs with the butter yellow tail. They are awesome! What you probably want is S. o. tumidus but the color is variable. Look at different locations until you find what you like. There are excellent ones at (I will send you a message). The IUCZN has officially accepted the name change from obesus to ater. Probably starting the later of march all mainland chucks will be known as Sauromalus ater. Bumber I liked obesus. Oh well. South of Phoenix in the Sacatons, Silverbells, Picacho Peak etc. are the yellowtails. They are solid black with butter yellow tails. Then of course South Mountain but be sure of collecting rules before taking them. They are the solid black with orange tails. I know they are protected but not sure if it is just the ones in the Park Boundaries or all of them(been told both ways). They are also scattered on a couple buttes with in the city limits but not sure which ones. Good luck and let us know how you do. Tom

Thanks for the info. I'll be crawling all over these mountains around Phoenix taking photos once it warms up. I saw a male chuck on South Mnt when we were out here in Oct that had a carrot tail but it had been broken off so it was more like those small finger food carrots.

I say go for it, I like the chucks, have 3, they are funny, feisty, and inquisitive when out.

They will fit right in as far as your new back yard !

Eve