Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've got two plumed green basilisks, which I got back on January 28th of this year, and I was wondering at what age do they begin to develop their dorsal crest/head crests?

I don't know how to sex them other than that, so I'm wondering when the buds start to come up on the head and back.

When I got them in January, they were about 2 or 3 months old, which makes them just about a year old.

I personally thought that they started to develope the crests down their backs at an earlier age, meaning i'm pretty sure both of yours are female. The females as far as I know, don't grow the crest down the back, but just get the little knub on the head a little bigger.

Well earlier age in regards to how old yours are. Pretty sure the males start to get their crests before 1 year of age.

Of course all depends a lot on housing conditions.
In general, males start visiblydeveloping sails between 6 and 8 months and at 12 months, back sails may already exceed 1 cm in height.

Best regards

Ingo

Although Basilisks develope crests in captive conditions . It's thought to be food related and how much territory they have , ie out in the field . The bigger the crest the more dominate older the male is . Although I've seen some females with pretty big crests on their heads , but no sails . I maybe wrong but I dont think in captive conditions the crests will ever get as large or reach full potential as opposed to how it could become if it were living on a rather large Phelidendron in Amazonia .

I do not agree.
Crest size is only in so far food related that starving animals develop lower crests.
Crest size is largely genetic and even in the wild you find all sizes.
But offspring of large crested specimens do have the potential to develop as large crest as their parents even in captivity. IMHO the key word is space. Raised in large enclosures the animals can develop very nice crests as I see for several generations I have transferred at the age of 6 months to tanks from 700 to 1100 g tanks.
The second keyword is exercise. Mine have to hunt actively for their prey and quite a large percentage of that is fish which they do have to catch out of the 45g tank included in their enclosure.
Also its a myth that they have to stay dull or turquoise coloured in captivity. Given enough light (having a luxmeter is essential...use strong metal halides, try to provide basking spots at at least 80 000 Lux) the cb specimens become (well, almost) as vividly green as the wild living ones.
And yes, females can develop quite a helmet and in exceptional cases even small sails-which anyhow never exceed 2-3 mm in height.

Regards

Ingo