Reptile & Amphibian Forums

for the first time tonight i got to see the whole gambit of aggression, courtship, and mating in my 3.3 group of phantasticus. and it's still going!

it first started off with a small vocalization, didnt sound quite like any of my other geckos, so i figured i would take a look at my satanics. ends up all 3 males were moving about the most elevated point in the tank, licking the ground, the air, and one another furiously. also, they were climbing over one another quite a bit. the aggression was minimal, id say, and i figured their energies would be put to better use in mating rather than asserting dominance over one another. since all 3 seemed to be ready to go at it, i separated them into different parts of the tank, leaving the only one i havent seen yet prove himself closest to my female who has been giving me eggs. sure enough, moments later he climbed on top of her as she laid still on a vine. as soon as he got his body completely over hers, he employed a small bite to the spiked scale at the rear tip of her jawline, and began twitching his tail quite a bit (not waving, but more like when they're hunting, only more exagerrated). he struggled for a while as she moved around, perhaps to test his strength and make sure he could hold on, but after a few minutes, i heard another small vocalization from her, and as i looked back i noticed that the pair were still locked together, only now they both lay still. the other 2 males have seemed to calm down so far, although one kept on trying to go back to the mating pair, so i separated him.

so hopefully this seals the deal and means ill be getting yet another fertile package from this little girl. she has been fat ever since the last clutch was laid, and its about time another is due. best thing yet, is i got most of the male's behavior recorded on my digi camera's movie feature, so hopefully it wasnt too dark to come out. i've gotta finish a project, but hopefully ill be able to get it all together, and hopefully it wont be too monstrous of a file so i can share it with some of the other phantasticus phanatics around here.

behavior is by far one of the most intriguing things about these little guys!

I bet that was really cool to see. I would love to catch my henkels in the act. It is so interesting to see how they interact with one another. Thanks for sharing your experience. Now I'm going to keep more of a lookout for any unusual behavior between mine..I hope you get more fertile eggs from that girl soon. Good luck!
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~Jess

Awesome. Congradulations and good luck with the babies. I love the satanics. If I could, I'd love to have a breeding pair of satanics and cork barks. I guess I have my hands full with the giants for now though. I'd love to see the video if you can post it.
Take it easy.

D

aw man dont talk to me about having your hands full!

including all of the hatchlings i have from this season and last, i have a total of 18 satanics right now!!! 9.6.3 to be exact. and thats only half of the collection!

I took your advice, I've got them all in reverse trios right now.

We'll see how it goes.

Cheers
Jason

sounds more like bragging to me umop lucky b@$%@#d

well, as we all know reporting good things happening and bragging go hand in hand, and as far as i know, theres nothing in the kingsnake TOS that says anything about bragging, as long as you arent flaming anyone.