Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i have 3 greater sirens and cant find to much info on them... like how to tell male or female etc... one has just laid some eggs but im not sure if they r fertile or not... any help would be greatefull... also they have been fighting non stop only one of the 3 will bite the others and will leave marks.... what should i do??

The care is basically the same as a lesser siren so you can use the information at this site. http://www.caudata.org/cc/species/Siren/S_intermedia.shtml

It is possible that the animal doing all of the biting is a male. At this time there are no known external sex characteristics.
If you want to try and hatch the eggs I would recommend removing them from the same tank as the adults as the adults will eat the eggs. It is possible the eggs are not fetile as stressed females have been known to spawn spontaneously.

Ed

thanks.... so do u know as of why they r biting each other??is it a breeding thing??? i have 3 and 2 of them bite each other all the time and pick on the 3rd which that one will not bite back... i had a 4th but the 2 that fight constantly killed it.... so im guessing since u said that that the one that the 2 pick on is a female since she dosent fight back??should i seperate the one they pick on?? and seperate the other 2 as well?? i put the eggs in a 10 gallon tank today so i guess ill wait and see what happens w/ that...im gonna check out that web site now thanks again....

If they are biting each other as frequently as I wit sounds I would seperate them. The one that is being bitten the most could also be a male. That is the problem with these animals. Males bite other males and females, (when collecting in the wild, this may be a way to guess at a the sex of an animal as the males may have fewer bite woulds as they can avoid each other, but they cannot do this in an aquarium). They have been known to tear limbs off each other. It is also a possible way to sex them by keeping them in pairs and seeing which animals consistantly bite other animals. They will also bite each other with a feeding response.
Does that help?
Ed

yes thank u that was very helpfull... i have the one that they attack the most in a tank w/ just one of the biters and put the 2nd biter in a tank by itself.... so far the 2 that r together have not bit each other... and the one who is by itself is going cray trying to get out....

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