Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Do gravid females produce the hormone gonadotropin? And if so how early and do they expell it in urates? I know it's an odd question but if you know what the hormone is you know why I'm asking.

Sean
Heart Mountain Herps

Whats the other question?

I am wondering if you are thinking along the lines of cloning questions, cancer questions, maturity questions or effects of the hormones at various ages
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www.reptilerooms.com

Nothing that complex. It's actually a spin off from a question I was asked on another forum - "how can you tell if their gravid for sure?" Anyway it got me to thinking a bit that most animals while pregnant produce high levels of gonadotropin as a progestin inhibitor, basically telling the body that they are pregnant. It's also the hormone that EPT tests for, so if you were to mix the urates with distilled water and then test you should be able to determine whether they were gravid or not. Sounds kind of expensive to me, I'd rather wait the week or 2 to find out but was just curious.

Thanks
Sean
Heart Mountain Herps

Cause we know x-rays do not work all that well!

We had one we were not sure if she was gravid, cause she is a big girl anyway, so we had her x-rayed and the vet said no, not gravid. 2 hours later, she started laying 26 eggs :/
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www.reptilerooms.com

trying to develop a pregnancy test for dragons? how would you get them to pee on the stick? lol
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Ross

0.1 Bearded Dragon (Fuego, spent the last 10 months thinking she was a he!)
2.1 Roommates (require more cleaning up after than the dragon)

Kind of, I explained it above. Pee on the stick lmao.

Sean

Gonadotropin-releasing hormone is present in all brains of all vertebrates including mammals (which includes humans), birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. The gonadotropin-releasing hormones (GnRH) (gonadoliberin) are a family of peptides that play a pivotal role in reproduction. In mammals a single form of GnRH has been found while in birds, reptiles and fish two forms are known.