Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I work at a petstore and someone has a mountain horned dragon that they no longer want. I want it! I have a 40 gallon tall tank that I just moved my rescue bearded dragon out of.(he's in a 125 gallon now) Will that be big enough? I am thinking of doing a substrate of bed a beast with peat moss mixture. Will that be ok? Also, I was thinking of taking a tupperware dish, fill it with water and put in a tiny powerhead to keep the water moving. Do the dragons like to swim? I have been trying to read up on them but there isn't very much info out there on the MHD and If anyone can, can you post pictures of your enclosures? Thanx! Tawnya

Hello Tawnya:
I'm sure Jobi and FroggieB will be chomping at the bit to help you because they work with lots of Acanthosaura. I have a few of them and have worked with them off and on for many years but not to the extent they have.
Mine have been fairly easy to work with once they were established. The males will flare up a bit and defend their territory which is a good sign that their health is in a more stable condition. Even so, if I offer crickets slowly and not menacingly from my fingers they will feed from my hands. I keep mine in terrariums with some live plants and vertical perching spots for them to retire to at night. They are somewhat of a humidity loving group of lizards so a large water dish is not a bad idea. Mine spend at least a little time sitting in the water during the daylight hours. Your 40 gallon high should be fine for your Acanthosaur. Given a little time to adjust with a minimum of distractions these lizards make wonderful terrarium animals. All too often I think the demise of many of these lizards is overhandling and improper environmental conditions. Most will feed willingly with little to no provocation.
I'm sure the others will fill in a lot of the blanks. These are tropical lizards so the temps should stay in the mid eighties with a slight drop at night and a basking site that can get a tad warmer.
You should check out some of the threads in this forum. There is lots of usable info here and plenty of photographs of both animals and the housing they live in.
Good luck and feel free to post any questions you may have.
Have a Great Day!!!

I just got the guy/girl home today and took some pictures. What kind is it, can you guys tell? Is it a boy or a girl? It already ate some calcium dusted crickets. Here are some pictures of it.

There’s 2 new species from south Vietnam that are imported these days, yours is one of them, witch? Sorry I don’t know nor can I sex your lizard, its not adult yet but it looks like female to me? In any case a very good looking lizard.

Rgds

Thank you, I think she{I think it might be a she as well} is very beautiful. You said that there are two new species? What are they called so I can research them a little? About how old do you think my little one is? She is about 6 inches, tip of nose to end of tail!

They aren’t officially named yet, I hear they will be soon!

My CBB are about 6 month old at 6TL, but yours being an import can be a year or more of age, impossible to know as growth depends on many factors.

Also theirs a significant size difference between both new species, almost halve size.

Rgds

Ps. I hatched some nice red babies from similar colure parents as yours. I now have a few color morphs red, orange, yellow, tan, green, cobalt, I think this specie holds the most color potential of all acanthosaura ssp. Photo the pair that started it all.

Hi jobi,
I know this is a little off topic of what the two of you are discussing, but the two in your picture look so good. Do yours ever get that slightly dryish, grey looking skin on their backs? They don't only get it on their backs, but that is at least where it starts. Sometimes it leads to a shed, sometimes not. Any thoughts? Too little humidity? Stress? Thanks for your input.

Bob

The animals pictured are both in shed, you can see the cobalt gravid female is about to shed. Therefore these are actually pictured at there worst color wise.

From them I got phenomenal offspring’s, witch in turn will produce even better looking babies I am sure. My orange morph leave all visitor even none herper’s in awe!

These have renewed my interest as a herper, nothing else available in herpetoculture has interested me, polymorphism is real important for me as theirs nothing more boring then hatching clutches after clutches of similar looking babies that grows up to look like zillion other of there kind.

These lizards have it all, looks, color, easy to care for, easy to feed, and easy to handle, excellent display.

The only con is there sedentary habits, but even this can be fixed thru diet and husbandry.

rgds

I water my cages when the humidity is about 40%, this means my lizards get pretty dry often, I don’t believe in keeping any lizards continuously wet.

Lizards sent mark there territory, they do so not only to claim ownership but also to advertise, they cant use such scent communication when the habitat is always wet, they will re-scent mark every time a surface dries, this is normal behaviour for all lizards, its how they recognise each other and there receptiveness.

Sorry Bob I didn’t understand what you meant exactly, I am French and sometime need to re-read to grasp the meaning of things.

To answer your question, I don’t keep any ordinary looking acanthosaura’s (like photo) I hope this is what you meant by dry-grey or dull coloring?

The first acanthosaura I got where such drab looking lizards, and they produced equally drab babies, that’s why I didn’t keep them.

Also I stop keeping crucigera, lepidogaster, coronata because they aren’t polymorphic, not only this but they have a less desirable temper. Just between us I think little of armata as a pet as they to have a nasty temperament.

Hope this time I answered to your question.

Rgds

Hello!
Thanks! I can certainly understand your frustration with "dull" lizards. That was one reason I wanted to try the gonos.

I have found the armata very problematic to keep. Never bred them, as of yet, but I am trying to organize a shipment of a few of their females. Really tough little critters.

As for the slivery, dull scale issue, the scales sometimes seem to look dull even in a previously colorful animal. It seems that they look nicer when freshly imported than they do after they have been in captivity for long periods. This is at least true of my female capras. The male is very handsome, not quite as orange-ish as yours though. He's more of a yellow-gold color.

I have this wonderful female who is this gray color, well not really gray, but it is just really really pretty. I know gray probably doesn't sound exciting, but she is quite pretty. I have a couple different colors going on myself, so I will be interested to see what happens with the babies.

If you don't mind me asking, how many acanthosaura do you have? I have been re-reading older posts and it seems like you have a ton! I have 1.3 capra, 1.2 armata, 1.2 coronata. Not terribly exciting I know, but I like them. Oh and speaking of my lizards, I don't know if you saw my post about the gonos? They are all doing very well now! Eating the mealworms out of a bowl like crazy! Thanks!

Regards,
Robert

Oh now I see what you mean!

I am not sure how or why exactly this happens, perhaps it’s a combination of several factors. Scales are more complex then we think, I have already posted about there water channelling properties on these lizards, now hears a little more about scales.

Think of acanthosaura as chameleons, they are more related then many lizards, both are tree lovers, both have color changing abilities, and both have a sticky tong pad.

These simple criteria’s actually says a lot about them, lets brake it down to better understand why they get so dull and dark.

Arboreal; arboreal lizards communicate 80% by signal (body language) 20% olfactory (Hormones)
Coloration; coloration adds to the signal vocabulary of these lizards, bright colors showing domination and breeding readiness, dark colors show submissiveness.
This is the social part about scales. Now the physiological aspect of scales, when the lizards is wormed up these scales are bright and reflects heat off the body, this to prevent overheating, when the lizard is cool these scales are dark, this allows grater heat absorption, this is typical of most lizards, but acanthosaura may have pushed this trait to an other level, there scales have the ability to become matt (less reflective) this furthermore increasing heat absorption as the sun rays are not reflected but absorbed. This same attribute can help one individual in his submissive role when caged with unknown individuals, captives raised in groups don’t show this.

Sticky pad; of course grabbing insects comes to mind, however this pad is also responsible for collecting minerals on the forest floor and rocks, this plays in our favour when wee feed them dusted insects in bowls, its also the reason I don’t use peat moss or coco crap as substrate.

I hope this answers a few questions.

Rgds

Ps. I own 30 adult imports and raising as breeders about 75 hand picked babies from these adults, I hope to offer some outstanding acanthosaura’s in a few years.

Biology lesson #2! Thanks so much. Now, hopefully I didn't misunderstand you, but are you saying that the crappy scale quality is actually a result of insufficient heat? That they actually need more warmth, say a hotter basking spot? I think I got that right.

The females change color far more often than the male, he doesn't seem to posses the ability or ranges that they do. I have one gravid female who is dark, I assume being gravid is why? she has been dark since I got her, but she was very very malnurished, parasitized, and dehydrated when I got her. Took me almost a full month of intensive care to get her back t normal. As I say, she is always sort of bland color wise.

Well, please correct me if i misinterpreted what you said. And thanks so much for the information!

Regards,
Robert

Yes photocells are actually heat sensitive, of course light may also affect them in ways I don’t fully understand.

However a higher basking may not be your problem, higher basking are fine for terrestrial agamas like stelio and bearded’s, but tropical forest arboreal lizards need more then a simple basking, they need mass ambient temperature and basking options. When provided with DTH ambient in the mid 80s they will bask very little, but they still need this option.

I use low wattage bulbs to achieve this as high wattage will mostly dehydrate the air in your cage. With a simple 25w bulb I can provide 130f basking if I use a reflector and lower the bulb close to a branch, I set my cages so they reach 84f ambient temps daytime, this really stimulate the metabolism of my lizards, they feed and drink more, however should I fail to provide for them they will perish much faster then if kept at lower temps.

That’s what I call high energy maintenance, the advantages are numerous and lizards perform a lot more and faster, but they need support in return.

A 10 degree drop at night allows these photocells full functions, it also allows the body to grow, I apply this same husbandry to my eggs, that’s why they hatch in the 55-70 days range.

rgds

Hello:
I've been away most of the weekend. I come back and see this beautiful Acantho that you have. It's a really nice animal you should be proud of. The colors are phenomonal. By the way, it looks like a female to me to.
Your habitat is real good looking and obviously the lizard likes it because it is eating already.
Have a Great day!!!

Thank you so much! it's so good to hear that I am actually doing some things right! You guys are really knowledgeable and I can't wait to get to know everybody!