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hello everyone i was wondering if anyone could help me i have a question. i just got a new uro (red phase nigerian female) not yet named. i already have a yellow nigerian male uro his name is Achillies. we put them into a cage and the male started bobbing his head at her. he never nipped at her or anything but he was constintly bobbing his head at her. he would also crawl over her and she would crawl over him. he would also walk around licking everything in his cage and the new female as well. what is the head bobbing thing about? is it a territoral thing mating thing or what? it has been 4 hours since i placed them together. and it seems that he has quit the head bobbing. also if it makes a difference the male is about a year and a half old and full grown. the female we dont know how old she is but she is only half the size of the male so we are guessing she is still a juevenille. they both ate their dinner so i know that they aren t that stressed out but i am still curious on weither it was aggression, territorial, or a mating thing that the male was doing? any input would help in case he starts doing this again. thank you.

That would be a mating thing... you'll see it again for sure and soem other variations on behavior. My geyri have been the least problematic for new introductions but that's no guarantee all will go smoothly.

How new is this new animal? Have you taken it through a quarantine procedure and had it checked/treated for parasites?
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2.3.0 uromastyx geyri (Saharan/Nigerian)
0.0.4 uromastyx hardwickii (Indian)
3.6.0 uromastyx macfadyeni (Somalian)
1.2.0 uromastyx ocellata (Sudanese)
1.3.0 uromastyx ornata (Ornate)
1.0.0 uromastyx benti pseudophilbyi

oh yes it has been to the vet and was checked for paracites. and i had it quarintined for 3 weeks. so the health is fine and both lizards should be happy. thanks for replying. mating huh?
how exciting!!

three weeks isnt really much of a quarentine all my animals go for 3 months atleast before they come out of quarentine
Also you said you beleive she's a juvinale, i would not leave them together breeding an animal to young isnt good for it. I would remove her to a seperate enclouser and let them breed when she's an adult

i have never bred uros so i could be wrong but just because the guy does the mating dance and maybe even does it with the new girl, doesn't mean she is going to have eggs. not with uros, but anytime i introduce a new female to my males, they do their little dances.
i was told once it was actually better to introduce a smaller uro, not too tiny, but smaller because the bigger one won't see it as a threat so there is less likely to be confrontations. does anyone else have any thoughts?
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vonnie
***There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is in having lots to do and not doing it. Mary Wilson Little ***

I haven't had any small females become pregnant under my care this year, but I've received a number of gravid ones. The smallest was a 130g female ornate that's now struggling to stay above 60-70g. Even where I've got larger males (like Ribs) being very "enthusiastic", the female seems to have avoided the wet bullet.
As far as I've seen in introducing them to each other, I can't readily say there's been anything "threatening" about the Uros that become victims. Going down my grocery list of aggressive Uro encounters, two female victims have been post-egg lays, one was VERY gravid. Male-male hostility has been less significant but they also haven't been mixed as much or allowed to go at it. Male-female aggression I've seen has been mostly tail whips (get off my chair) while female-male has been mostly retaliatory (you're really bothering me).
There's been no constancy regarding size of the animals and aggression displayed/received. They either don't mind each other, or they have problems. In one container recently, I removed one of two girls, skinny and post-laying who seemed intmidated by the larger more friendly (to me) girl. The larger one now seems depressed since the other was removed (anti-social, declined appetite, etc) despite having attacked her previously, while "skinny" is thriving in with three other females in a different container.
This weekend I tried introducing my young ornate female that was recently attacked into my adult benti's "bachelor pad". On sight of the new animal in my hand, he started doing the S-dance while up on a branch. Tried it twice with the same result so I called off that experiment.
I've also been through the BS that's written somewhere that hardwickii are great for "colonies" and get along well... well... not totally true either.
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2.3.0 uromastyx geyri (Saharan/Nigerian)
0.0.4 uromastyx hardwickii (Indian)
3.6.0 uromastyx macfadyeni (Somalian)
1.2.0 uromastyx ocellata (Sudanese)
1.3.0 uromastyx ornata (Ornate)
1.0.0 uromastyx benti pseudophilbyi