I work at a pet shop and unfortunately the water dragons we order almost always come in as skinny, dehydrated little babies with horrible mouth rot and/or nose rub. We recently decided to give it another go and ordered one and to my surprise we got a roughly half grown one in (relatively) good condition. Minimal nose rub and no mouthrot whatsoever... his teeth and gums are in good condition and while not exactly plump, he's not skinny either.
He generally seems alert, but doesn't care to move much from his perch. I will forcep feed him crickets/mealworms and he goes nuts for them, but if a cricket drops near him and he has to move to catch it, he ignores it. The really strange thing is that when he takes a food item from me, he sits for a VERY long time with it half in his mouth but won't eat it. If I take another cricket and dangle it he will promptly swallow what is in his mouth so he can snatch the new bug, but then he'll do the same thing! He seems healthy, and definitely appears to have a healthy appetite (he ate about a dozen crickets the last time I fed him like this!), but I'm worried something may be wrong, and I've never witnessed this behavior before. Any thoughts?
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1.0 RES, Spunky
1.0 African mud turtle (P. castaneus), "Francois the Tortois"
1.0.1 Mali Uromastyx, Ajani, Guban(Goober)
1.0 Brazilian Rainbow Boa, Nico
0.0.1 Northern Blue Tongue Skink, Owajabi(Jabi)
0.0.1 African bullfrog, Ushi
3.0 Cats
1/2.0 rabbit (friend and I went 50/50)
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Strange water dragon behavior?
Replies (2)
That is pretty normal behaviour for wc or shy specimens. Any moving in the presence of predators can be dangerous and makes them visible as prey. So they try to move as little as possible as long as they do not feel fully secure.
On the other hand, eating is important. So, if their fear is not too big, they may catch feeder insects -but then immediately stop moving. If you leave them alone, they normally swallow the prey soon. If another prey item is offered, swallowing the first is a prerequesite before catching the second. So they dare to chew in this situation and stop it wehn having caught the next item.
Hope that helps
Ingo
Thanks, that's pretty much what I figured to be the case.
-----
1.0 RES, Spunky
1.0 African mud turtle (P. castaneus), "Francois the Tortois"
1.0.1 Mali Uromastyx, Ajani, Guban(Goober)
1.0 Brazilian Rainbow Boa, Nico
0.0.1 Northern Blue Tongue Skink, Owajabi(Jabi)
0.0.1 African bullfrog, Ushi
3.0 Cats
1/2.0 rabbit (friend and I went 50/50)
