Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a 2yr old male crestie and after a fruitless search in my area for an adult female, I purchased 2 juvenile cresties hoping to grow at least 1 female.

I attempted to house them all together, but had a spare tank in case. Sure enough the big boy had locked onto one of the juveniles within 10 minutes.

I moved the younger ones to the spare tank. Looks like saving space in a bust.

Anyway, on to the question...
When the adult male was attacking the younger one (about half his size) he extended his hemi-peens, this does not sound like territory aggression to me (unless crested geckos are the worlds biggest daredevils). Does this sound like mating behavior? Possibly I hit the jackpot with at least one of the young'uns and it's a she?

Any other descriptions of aggressive / mating behavior out there?

I don't have any experience, or expert advice, but I think that if that happens the juvie will become eggbound because she wont be able to pass the eggs due to her size. That would be my CONCERN, I don't have anything to back that up though, so if I am way off please ANYONE let me know. Good luck though, sounds like you got a female to me

I have no intention of breeding any of them at this point. "P.S." (Possible She) as I have named it, has been moved to another cage. It was done as an experiment too see if I could house them together.

you should never ever house different size anything in the same enclosure, geckos or any other reptile. its not safe!

idk if it was mating behaviour or not but it sounds like a territorial issue, males are extreamly territorial.

you say these new ones are about half in size. what do they weigh? or what is there size, usualy from 4 months to 12 months you can tell if its a male or female by the bulges.

i doubt that the males agression you would be able to tell if you had a male or female gecko.

I'd say aggression. In the first place it was dangerous putting the two younger cresties in there, they could have lost tails or feet or their lives. Also, for any new reptile to a collection there should be a quarantine period, should they have any parasites, so that your own collection (or male) doesn't get them.

Another issue is what if it is a her and what if he did mate with her, now you have a female who is probably too small to safely lay eggs and may die due to eggbinding. Not sure if the incident happened son after you put them together and you were watching them the whole time, but would be another implication of housing different sized cresties together, if you had, which by the way if you hadn't figured out yet, is a bad idea unless you -ya'know- want to kill your cresties.