Reptile & Amphibian Forums

does anybody know how to sex an iguana?

That's gross, and I think illegal.

n/p

I know there are some people that can tell just by looking, but I think it can be very hard to tell by sight, especially when dealing with a well-cared for female. A male may have larger fat deposits in his jowls (looks like he has food in his cheeks), be bigger than a female, have bigger femoral pores (little holes on the bottom of your ig's thighs) with waxy protruberances sticking out of them that he uses to mark his territory and announce he's in season.

Speaking of "in season", you'll more definately know the sex when s/he reaches about 18 months old. If well cared for, a male will PROBABLY turn orange, more agressive/affectionate, and leave semen plugs around his enclosure when he goes into breeding season at 18 months old. A female may become gravid, full of (hopefully) unfertilized eggs, and grow moodier and more restless as she looks for a place to lay them. But then again, there is such a wide range of mating season/gravid behaviors, that this can be misleading, too.

SO then we get to the final two options: one is free, and one is not.

The one that costs money and is potentially dangerous to your ig is taking your iglet to the vet, getting him general anaesthesia, and having a vet insert sexing probes into the ig's vent- if the probe stops a short way in, it's female. If the vent goes to the left or right, it's male- the male has two passages, the female one. (To the best of my understanding- somebody correct me on this one, please!)

The free one is watching your ig poop. If you can get him to poop in some kind of container at eye level- hey, stop laughing! - if you can get him to do this, you might see him evert his hemipenes on the final push while defecating. They look like two little pink finger-type things. It literally looks like intestine falling out, and freaked me out the first time that happened.

Oh, Bud wasn't being obliging with the whole eye-level thing, he was pooping in his water dish, and I came over to try to rush him over to the tub, where he's SUPPOSED to go! Too late.

-Erin

>>does anybody know how to sex an iguana?

You can not sex them until they are a year old (unless you happen to have a male who extrudes his hemipenes while pooping at a younger age). Please read my Sexing Iguanas article to find out how to sex yearlings.

In 10 years of sexing igs visually, I've only met two igs who confounded me, both being very masculinized females.
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Melissk
anapsid.org
Iguanas for Dummies

It's interesting you should say that...I work at the Humane Society here and we recently got in "Iggy", a CLASSIC big male iguana...5' long, huge head, immense jowls, high dorsal spikes, big, flapping dewlap, bright orange coloring and attitude out the wazoo(YOU want a piece of ME???)

Anyhow, when I talked to Iggie's original owners I learned that when Iggie was about 18 months old "he" laid 24 infertile eggs...She has never been gravid or laid eggs again since that one incident (she's now 5 years old)...I wonder if these masculinized females are the result of some sort of environmental "glitch" or just an example of the far end of the normal range for sexual characteristics..Anyhow, it's weird...