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perhaps some of you can share some insight on some odd behavior we have seen with Uros...

VERY BRIEF HISTORY we have our Ornate Uros (nearly yearlings) set up on 2 ft of soil substrate. we feel we have had terrific success so far, and great feedback from the animals themselves.

they do a lot of digging, with long, multi chambered tunnels and burrows (i have measured tunnels up to 12 ft long). here comes the weird part...

at the entrance of the main burrows of a cage, you will always find a pile of small rocks. these are stones that are a part of the decomposed granite that we use.

i used to think that this group of stones was "wash off" from adding water to the soil twice a week. we just dump water in, and it tends to pool and run down the burrows as it soaks in. i figured it must be washing away the finer, "siltier" parts of the soil, and leaving the heavier stones behind, kinda like gold mining

but Chad would be the one adding water, and he started pulling the stones out from the entrance of the burrows...

and a few days later, more stones appeared...

so he stopped adding water in that area altogether, and still pulled stones, and yet they kept reappearing. apparently, what is happening is that the Uros are excavating the burrows, and actually carrying stones out of the burrows, dropping them at the entrance.

keep in mind there is NO evidence of excavated soil, no piles or throws of excavated soil, just these dumb stones

we have never actually seen a Uro bringing out stones, they must do it in private (at night?) and i have no idea whether they are carrying them in their mouths, pushing them with their nose, or levitating them with some super advanced, space age, Uro ray gun, all i know is that in EVERY Uro cage, there is always a new pile of stones outside the entrance of the main burrows. give it a week, and there are lots of stones

i have included a couple of pics i just took, for visual reference...

i think it is pretty fascinating, and seeing as i am more of a monitor guy than a Uro guy, i thought some folks might be better able to explain this behavior. for all i know, it is as common as Uro poop

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robyn@proexotics.com

Pro Exotics Reptiles

Im sorry i definately cant shed any light on this . that is the craziest thing~!!
You stated that you have just the rocks . So i wonder where all the dirt went that encased the rocks ? Do the rocks appear in the morning? If you get an answer pls keep us posted .

thanks

that is some craziness about the rocks. maybe you could set up a little camera one night to see if they are doing anything. perhaps they don't like sleeping on them or crawling across them all the time so they remove them or maybe they stack them up kinda high to keep things from getting into their holes. i know helga will go into her hide spot and almost close the doorway before she goes to sleep. it would be interesting to see the rock thing though.
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vonnie
***One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries. - A. A. Milne***

My curiousity is definately sparked on this one. First of all, "2ft of soil"? 12ft burrows? Damn, sounds like a really cool set up ). Maybe the closest to their natural enviroment yet.
Since there's no down side to this, I'm going to take a stab at it. IMO, (and this stems from all the Discovery, nature, and science channels) I'm guessing that it could be one of two things (or both). As they are constantly "remodeling" their burrows, and digging around, the tunnels are going to constrict a bit with the loose dirt. Even in our infinate wisdom, when mining in caves, we had to remove the rock that we broke up. The large pieces are the esiest and and most obvious things to go with as I'm not sure how they would move fine dirt (the uros). The other opinion, since you say that once the rocks are removed, there's more the next day, makes me think that they are, to some extent, maybe monitoring the size of their burrow opening...? I now many spiders that burrow, customize their doorway to suit their needs.
I don't know for sure, but it's definately a new area. I'd say, click on that pop-up for the "home security" camera that's triggered by motion and set up the infared. Don't know if that'd tell you why, but sure as heck would be cool to see.

-Jim
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2.1 - Rocky, Runako, and RoxyIII

the stones are laid out in a general area at the opening of the burrow, they aren't placed to make it tighter, or less accessible, or anything like that...

it seems they take them out of the burrow, JUST out of the burrow, and that is enough

maybe we will try a camera setup at some point...
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robyn@proexotics.com

Pro Exotics Reptiles

That's amazing. And it would be cool to see if they are moving them by mouth and what not. I'd say take them out and check their burrows to see if there is anything of a concerning matter in them, but that would take a lot of time and it would ruin the burrows.

But yeah, I say go ahead and set up a camera, that seems like an interesting site to see.

that's really wierd. I would assume there must be some sort of purpose to putting the stones there. If I remember right, I saw a picture of a wild uro's burrow and there were tons of stones at the entrance as well....I just assumed it was very stoney soil. Hmm, since the new cages will be completed in a couple of weeks, when I setup sam's digging box I'll mix in some stones and see if they end up anywhere. Of course, it's not a real burrow, so I'm not sure she'd put them at the entrance, but it'd be interesting to see anyways.