Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Today, on day 70 of incubation, I decided to open up one egg to see how things were going with the rest of the clutch. The eggs were incubated pretty warm so I figured they'd be very close to hatching time anyway. I found a fully formed baby with a clear bubble in its belly where all of the guts were just floating around inside....never seen that before. Also, as I was reaching back into the egg box, one of the other eggs literally popped right in front of me without me touching it in any way. I noticed that with the first one, it did not have an egg tooth.
So my question to anyone who may know is how soon does an egg tooth form? Is it right before hatching? Maybe this one I dissected did not yet have one. But could it be possible that Lyres do not have an egg tooth and "pop" when they hatch? As soon as it popped, the egg was cut across the short side on top about half of the entire circumference of the egg. It was under such force, I could hear it pop too. I have hatched tons of colubrids and plenty of python eggs and I have never heard of this. This is our first time trying to hatch lyres. I just hope I get a few to live. Anyone got any ideas?
-Yasser
-----
"If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough."
- Mario Andretti

I had the same thing happen a couple days ago with a Uta stansburiana egg. The thing just popped while I was checking the eggs. I expected these eggs to have a couple weeks to go, and the embryo, though pretty far along, wasn't ready for hatching and just died. The best I could think of was that maybe excessive moisture causes more swelling than desert-adapted critters' eggs can handle, but I really don't know. Odd, either way...

Patrick Alexander