Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Has anyone every heard their uro make a sound before? I have two subadult female and two adult male Saharans all housed together. Everyone gets along fine--great in fact. Well, I acquired another male--this one subadult and he is being housed separate from the others (he will eventually be joining my nephews two females), but he's a little skittish. Anyway, yesterday being a very nice day, I put them all in their enclosure out on my deck. My one male "hissed" and took a nip (no damage, no broken skin no real reaction even) on the new male. Shocked me and I immediately removed him back inside--the others went along fine as always and Apollo was back to normal. I've never even seen the slightest aggression from him or any of the others. Just curious if anyone else has seen this type of behavior. Thanks.

This is not unusual behavior for uros. The population of multiple enclosures is usually best kept at 1.2. One male only per enclosure. Even with this, aggression can occur and sometimes be very subtle. I had a trio of bentis which were supposed to be 1.2. As soon as I housed them together, the 1.2 turned out to be 2.1 with the little male being bit in the face. They are now separate. Saharans are generally easy going, but when they decide it is competition for the girl, the most aggressive guy wins. I would separate the males immediately.

Pam

I have heard this when the animals feel threatened and are displaying a defensive response.
I have seen this with the arching of the back, tail waving, lunging, biting....
I am not an advocate of putting my Uromastyx together. The stress that the submissive animal displayed for some time after they had been separated was a serious concern.
Not to mention a 17" 800 gram Egyptian in full attack mode is fairly scary.....
The below picture was taken shortly after I received the "pair".
They really did not like each other.....wether that was misrepresented by the seller or not......