Sexing Blue Tongues

[Davo66]

Hi all,
Today I picked myself up a couple of hatchling blueys. The breeder told me it is very difficult to sex hatchling blueys. Does anyone know different? Can they be sexed visually or is probing the only way? Any help would be appreciated-or just point me in the direction of a good thread to read up on.
Cheers,
Davo

[kel]

do a search theres been a few threads on this topic

[Rastass]

If you can sex them then you are a better man than Glen Shea and are probably now the worlds leading expert on blue tongues. Glen says that you can relax the lizard and may be able to invert a hemipene. If you do then yes, you have a male. If you dont, then maybe you have a female or maybe you just coudn't invert the hemipene. There are other indicators but none of them are guarantees. You can't even XRay for spurs accurately. I have heard of people probing but again that may not be exact.

In the wild is has been found that female blue tongues will stay in their territory (about the size af a few yards) but the males will wander into female territories. That may be a way to guess with wild ones.

I currently have 3 adult blue tongues. One of the 3 is really fat for some reason. I am guessing that I have 2 males and 1 female.

I think you will just have to wait and see sorry Davo. Or find Glen Shea at Sydney Uni or at an AHS meeting.

[kev]

Hi Davo,
You want to know how to sex blue-tongues.
The way l sex my blue-tongues is, l look at the tail and head size and body thickness.
What l mean is, the males have a long thin tail, and are long pointy head, where the females have are short thick tail, and a short wider head, where the boby is much more thicker and round than the males body.

The reason why, females have a thicker tail and shorter tail, is to store fat in there, and when the male wants to mate with her, he can lift her tail of the ground more easy, the reason why they have a much more thicker body, is because they need the extra room for when they get pregnant.

The reason why the males have a more pointy head, is because they need it for when they want to grab the female for mating, and the reason why they also have a longer tail, is because they need the extra lenth to use when they want to mate with the female by lifting her tail of the ground, so they can position themselfs better.

There is one book l would recommend that you get yourself a copy of, and that is
(Keeping Blue-Tongue Lizards) by Grant Turner,
if you go to are www.reptilepublications.com.au, you will see it on there, it as all the details on our to order and cost as well.

Good luck in keeping and breeding your Blue-Tongue Lizards.

From Kev.

[Davo66]

Thanks heaps Kev, similar to what the breeder told me, appreciate your effort and thought into the reply.
Cheers,
Davo

[castellano]

it is hard to sex blueys when they are young, my male was sexed as a female by a breeder. up until he successfully bred with another female i was none the wiser.

Aaron

[DA_GRIZ]

hey

i just did what kev said to do and i have a male and female

[Rastass]

I wish Glen Shea was a member here

[Rastass]

for some more info on blue tongues go here
http://www.abc.net.au/science/scribb...00/default.htm
Glen is currently supervising Jennifers PHD and it is showing interesting results. He has given some very interesting presentations to herp clubs recently.

[Repz]

Ive always been told you look on there stomach and if its orangish or pinkish its a female???
Is this info true or false ?

[alumba]

I used to probe them at work with a 90% accuracy rate it really isn’t that hard u just have to be careful and you
may still have to compare to other specimens.


Other way is you compare there head size of the two animals.
They have to be around the same size as well in length and i think this way is only good when they are adults

[hobbo]

i was told by the speaker at the mac herps meeting that the BEST way is to buy a few and hope for the best so i now have 6 and hopfully i will have a pair somewhere in there

[Rastass]

Yes Scott. That speaker was Glen Shea. And if he cant do it then who can????

[hobbo]

very true NOW he was a man who knew a thing or two about bluies

[snakelover]

I used to think I could eye-ball the difference between males and females based on body shape. And the fact is that when you see a proven male and proven female, it can make sense (the long thin male vs chunky female story). But I keep guessing wrong! What the yanks do appears to be the best test. They keep the subject bluey in an enclosure with clean astroturf substrate. When it craps, if its a male, there should be seminal deposits (yuch). If there aren't any of these whitish slimy deposits adjacent to the faecal stuff (or coating it), then it should be a female. I haven't tried this but it sounds reasonable. Its also very easy to misinterpret biting behaviour and to separate territorial stuff from 'I wanna mate' stuff. All very frustrating, and very hard on the bluetongues until a good social group is established.

We're certainly in the mating season now, which has given me an opportunity to at least narrow down the who's who in our colonies, as we've sprung a few of the loving couples in the act.

John