A friend of mine picked me up this pair of E. Read headed Agamas a week or so ago from an importer in Florida. I mistook the female for a male at first glance due to the amount of orange on her head. The male can go from stunning colors to drab pale in just a few seconds, and then back to intensity again. The pair is doing amazingly well in a 55 long, and have eaten crickets, superworms, and some bit of salad. The female looks as if she may be close to dropping a clutch of eggs too.
Courtship in this species is very interesting. I was lucky enough to observe it in the wild, and also in the tank. The males will do some head bobbing...a lot different from the collareds. These guys do some long slow bobs as opposed to the almost vibrations of the collareds heads. If the female is interested, she turns some short circles around the male with her tail raised high. She is actually courting him. It is pretty neat to see. I have not witnessed any mating yet though.
The teeth are interesting too. The have two long teeth in the front, and two on the bottom...almost fang-like. They chew their food very rapidly, and often chew superworms in half, and leave the tail-end on the substrate. I'm curious to see how long the males hold their breeding colors. This guy shows his of and on all day long...mostly his colors are intense.
The conditions I have them in are identical to the collareds, I just have been offering them more water, as they seem to drink a lot deeper than I have ever witnessed the collareds drink. They have a nice egg-laying area prepared, so hopefully I can get some captive hatched babies this year.
My collareds have not colored up yet...perhaps they won't. My male has been seen head bobbing a little bit, eventhough he was not brumated with the females. We'll see how the year goes.
John Eddington
