Reptile & Amphibian Forums

okay, i got this book about Bearded dragons and frilled lizards. Its called, well- "bearded dragons and Frilled lizards". It was written in Germany, but i have the English version.

In the filled dragon section, under "sexual differences" it says: "The sexes of C. Kingii are best distinguished whilst the animals are still young. REISINGER (1995)states that careful attention should be given to the root of the tail. Before these animals are three months old males may be reconigsed by their prominent hemipenes pockets. Later this is not possible because the tail joint becomes so thick that the hemipenes pockets can no longer be seen as such" Then it goes on about sexing adults.

I have never heard this before. so can you sex babies by looking at their hemipenes bulges? what do yall think?

The book is great for beardie people and frilled people. oots of info. You can get it on AMAZON.com.

I'm not 100% sure if the same applies to frillies but with bearded dragons and a lot of other lizards and geckos, that is "somewhat" true. The true part is yes you can tell the sex of a lizard by the bulges at the base of the tail, the males are usually very prominent and females don't have any bulge. The untrue part is that you cannot see this until the reptile is much older than 3 months. In most reptiles they'd have to be at least 6 months before the bulges are prominant enough to tell, Most reptiles younger than that are indistinguishable. It sounds like some of the facts in that book got lost in translation so be careful with what it tells you.

Yeah, i know you can sex ADULTS by hemipenile buldges (duh). I was just confused because it said UNDER 3 months. It goes on to say that after 3 months, it is harder to do this. I was thinking maybe frillies are different than other lizards. Maybe it was mistranslated.

Thanks a lot,
Andrew

This is true, back in 1992 I recieved 10 young aussie bloodline frillies from my now good friend Manfred Reisinger. These were 2-3 months old and sexed 100% correctly by this/his method. I have also sexed them like this before.
Bob Sutton
Maxian's Collection