Reptile & Amphibian Forums

How intelligent are BDs? I have an Argentine B W tegu and he is smarter than me! I just got my first BD this week, and am just wondering how smart these guys are? My little guy looks me right in the eye and watches everything I do, both of which my tegu also does. Do they learn who individual people are, and recognize their keepers? What signs of intelligence have others noted?
-----
-Bill

1.0.0 Albino California Kingsnake
0.1.0 Colombian Red Tail Boa
1.0.0 Jackson's Chameleon
0.0.1 Bearded Dragon
0.0.1 Argentine Black and White Tegu

redatoryLizard@Yahoo.com">PredatoryLizard@Yahoo.com

Yes they do know who their people are. My older male is a mamma's boy where the female is better with the kids. She seems to understand they are just little people and she will put up with a lot more from them. When I took them to the school, she looked like she knew it was all about her, had kinda a prissy look about her. I have both my 20 month olds paper trained, where they only go on paper towels. And the baby has me trained well, will only eat greens if hand fed and likes to climb my arm for a silkie. And only will eat crickets out of a cup. I can't say they are as smart as the dog (at least he picks up his toys) but I think they are pretty smart.

My dragon was smart enough to figure out the quickest way to get her cage cleaned after she had a poo. She would thump and claw the side of her cage till it woke me up (since she is in the same room where I slept). I would of course clean it up for her, then she happily went back to basking on her log....and I went back to sleep (worked late shift then so cleaning the cage was the only way I could get more sleep)
-----
PHLdyPayne

My little one's got too much smarts for his own good. When he sees the pet shop bag I bring home with his crickets inside, he'll go nuts jumping back and forth across the cage till I dump them in. He also knows when I'm going to spray him (which he hates) and turns his back on me when I grab the spray bottle.