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Anyone have experiance with these? Canary Island Lacertid.

I Have been breeding them for some years. Beautiful hardy liazrds. Mainly herbi- and frugivorous. Easy to breed and prolific if you have a pair which gets along well with each other .
And here comes the point: Extreem aggressivity. One of my males killed 4 females before he accepted one. Even the hatchlings start killing each other pretty soon if you do not seperate them directly after birth.

Regards

Ingo

Very good information I have not seen written anywhere else. Thanks for the post. Have to be careful introducing females I guess!

My coule of G.g.eisentrauti have produced 4 good clutches. But after that a male unexpectedly bitten off the females rear leg. Another incedent: Lacerta madia and Gallotia stehliny were rised together for more then one year.Then I found in my tank
just a single leg of adult female Lacerta media. Rest of the animal was swalloved by semi-adult Gallotia stehlini.
Alex Rudyk

I tend to agree with Ingo to a degree. I have been working with
both the G stehlini and the G g eisentrauti and have had no problem
with my adult pairs. I must add that they were acquired as proven
compatible pairs so I can't really contradict what Ingo is saying and
I've not yet witnessed any of this aggression in any of my adult
breeders. The stehlini are much calmer than the somewhat flighty
eisentrauti although the smaller eisentrauti wins thumbs down as far
as the vibrant colors they display.

As far as hatchling/juvenile aggression, I have not seen any. I was also
warmed that as hatchlings/juveniles the eisentrauti could become quite
vicious toward their clutch mates. I have had 2 to 3 month old stehlini
together since they hatched and have seen none of this aggression
whatsoever. As far as the eisentrauti, there may be a little chasing
around by a bully but nothing serious enough that would lead me to
separate them.

Could be that I keep the juveniles in large holding tanks with lots of
hides and branches so they can each claim their own territory but I
think the fact that I feed them all well and on a daily basis keeps them
fat and happy I guess.

These are truly prolific as I can get three clutches from my eisentrauti
(third clutch to hatch in a few weeks) and two clutches from the
stehlini and they make it seem almost effortless.

John

May depend on the acutal breeder strain. But I have to repeat that when I strated to breed eisentrauti, repeatedly babies killed siblings within a few day after hatching.
With some care, some hatchlings could be raised in small groups, but the majority had to be kept single.
Only in very small enclosures, aggressivity was lost in adults as well as in babies. But thats not the way I want to go. I kept adults in 4 x 3 x 4ft minimum.
I heard of few keepers with less agressive animals, but also of several guys having exactly the same problems.
So it may depend on the actual animal. But I have seen to many eisentrautii to kill each other to stop warning.

Ingo

I must agree with Ingo that level of agression depends mostly on individuals or, maybe, strains. I don't have first-hand experience with G.galloti eisentrauti (yet ), but I've been keeping and breeding G. stehlini for several years. My original animals were bought as CB-s, but I suspect they might be WC-s, considering some tell-tale scars and missing toes on them. Although "breeder" claimed them to be compatible, I had to separate them (1 male and 2 females) several days after I placed them to their terraria (200cmX80cmX90cm) because of agression. Male was mildly agressive toward both females, and one female nearly killed another. I get them together only when breeding is attempted, and then under strict supervision. While females are somewhat shy and flighty, male (cca 70cm long with huge head)is also agressive toward humans. I received more then a few painful and very bloody bites during cage cleaning. I've began to use pair of heavy-duty gloves for that purpose.
Fortunately, their offspring are nothing like parents. I've been raising hatchlings (up to 3-4 months old) in dense groups with no signs of intraspecific agression. As John said, key to this harmony must be in regular feeding schedule, as well as appropriate type of food (good amount of vegetable matter in addition to insects). Nice pair of subadults that I've kept from my first clutch for future breeding purposes are very gentle animals which never attempted to bite, even when handled.

I used to breed Gallotia galloti galloti( one time). Gallotia galloti eisentrauti( 6 times) and Gallotia stehlini(about 8-10 times).This year I'm going to breed Gallootia atlantica
Alex Rudyk