Reptile & Amphibian Forums

How do I know when a lizard is stressed by its environment or cage mate, and how to tell the difference?

The answer is easy and most keepers have already witnessed this at some point or an other.

Lizards claw at the door when something is wrong.
Food, water, heat, hydration they will try to get out if any of these is missing or wrong.

In groups we often see one lizard trying to get out, this lizard is saying help.
When bullied, when mating calls they will clay to get out.

When I see a lizard clawing to get out, immediately I go to alarm mode, why?
It take a minute to figure out the problem, maybe this is why I don’t have much problems with my captives.

Its this simple!

Ps. Those of you thinking your lizards wants to play when they claw at the door, should consider a dog.

Or the other way round: They hardly move, hide, sometimes show extremely brilliant colours.

Ohter species do react with increased aggressivity or "false tameness".
In some cases, a special stress colour appears and sometimes, this may stay the only sign of stress.
In other cases, bad shedding or occasional trembmbing attacks are the only sign.

And there is much more...

I hence would not say its always simple to detect stress in lizards. Even after several decades of herpetoculture, I sometimes have problems in deciding if a lizard is stressed or not.

Regards

Ingo

What specie are you referring too?

Dragons don’t hide much, and when in bad shape usually turn an ugly dark color (not bright in anyway)
When at rest or sleeping they exhibit the most bright colors, but then stress is not a problem.

Shedding is defiantly a stress related problem, I still have some problems in this regard with my dragons, not the cbb but the imports. Once an import sheds regularly without problems it can be called acclimatised, before this its an import with all the possible problems of imports, right now even if my females are producing well I still consider them imports, not acclimated.

what is it when it is the only one in the cage?

Single lizards will claw to get out when something is wrong, of course I am talking about acanthosaura, gonocephalus and varanids as these are mostly what I keep.

The need to escape is always related to an other need, when contempt they have no need to escape, if food, water, heat, hydration is correct, the only reason my lizards tried to escape was for mating.

If anyone sees other reasons pleas post about it.
rgds

"when contempt they have no need to escape,"

Jobi, just want to point out for you that contempt is when you have bad feelings or despise someone. I think you meant content here!

Also wanted to point out that from my experince with several armata lost over the last 3 years that they are an exception to your comment on Acanthosaura turning dark and ugly when stressed. It has been my experience that with the armata it is very hard to tell when the males are crashing. They will look very healthy, fat and bright in color right up to the day you find them laying stiff and dead on the botton of the viv, or clinging by one claw from a vine or branch. It is really sort of wierd! Its almost as if the colors become more vibrant just before they pass! Because of this I am having a very hard time reading my armata. The females are easier to read as they show dehydration with flakey and saggy skin, dull color and sunken eyes when they are stressed, but not the males from what I have experienced. Every male I have lost has look like a gem when he died.
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Marcia - FroggieB Dragons
www.froggieb.com/MHDHome.html

Yes that’s what I meant to say!

When armatas are kept in groups of many males and females, the dominant males will show colors, the rest will darken, at the end only one male will stand out.

Theirs a reason for this, let me attempt to explain.

Lizards that use colors to attract females or threat display with other males, armata, gonocephalus and chameleons all do this. In nature subordinate males will flee, and the dominant male will parade show bright colors and even take the opportunity to mate any available females in the process. However captives have no place to go! Therefore dominated lizards turn dark in submission, but eventually even the dominant male will perish, in fact if not separated from both males and females he will perish, but in a different way.

When a male is alone with females, he will display dominant colors, not only to keep other males away, but also to advertise, in fact he’s letting all females know he’s the Alfa male and they should mate with him, he keeps the colors to keep his statue, in nature this male have no need to taxes his system this way, as he only needs full usage of his photocells in the presence of other males and females, otherwise he can relaxed and have normal colors.

When a male is housed with or near (can see, smell ) females, he will keep his statue even when the females are gravid, this situation turns into mutual stress, witch affects both male and female, can even cause egg retention.

In other words; dominated lizards turn dark, dominant lizards show bright colors even when highly stressed.

I really hope you understood all of this as it’s crucial information to know, with many species of all type reptiles. I don’t talk much about this as its more about behaviour and allot more complex then basic husbandry.

If you have any questions? Let me know.
rgds

"When armatas are kept in groups of many males and females, the dominant males will show colors, the rest will darken, at the end only one male will stand out."

This is common in many Cichlids so I understand exactly what you are saying. This even effects gender at least at a young age in a few animals, so anything is believable to me with some proof.
The only thing is I have had lone males show darker colors when in health and bright green/red coloration under stress. This has been noted with many Gono's as well out of Malaysia at least. I also have found diet and UV to play a role in coloration. Your observations seem to be very different so it would be interesting to find the factors that are so different.

Hello Shan
Of course we can investigate this together in hope for a better understanding.

Its my opinion that photocells should actually be called heat cells, as they are heat activated not light.
Light spectrum reflects colour in different ways, so we can only go by color intensity to make any judgement. But first we need to monitor how much heat is radiated by those bulbs?

A question I ask myself when reading your post, are these lizards in visual contact? Can they see there own reflection in glass? Husbandry is a complex mix of variables, why we need to start simple and work our way up. Of course the more we talk the more we learn.

Merry Christmas

Hey Marcia and all, in the many years of keeping and breeding "difficult lizards" i've found that the prettier they are, the harder to keep and usually have more of an attitude than their closely related counterparts such as the armata in the Acanthosaurus genera. Same goes with the duller species of gonos, tree dragons, and sailfin dragons.....much easier to keep than the brighter more ornamental ones. The bright ones stand out like sore thumbs and thus easily jump on to the stress wagon in captivity. Your best bet in any situation to alleviate stress for the pretty species that are serious about holding their territories, is to keep your males separate from the girls(who always have better appetites to keep egg production up)and seem to have way less mortality issues due to the need to reproduce. Man if it were only easy like snakes LOL.
Scott
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