Water Dragon Cannibalism.

Aussie Pythons & Snakes Forum

Help Support Aussie Pythons & Snakes Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Status
Not open for further replies.

baker

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 12, 2011
Messages
621
Reaction score
363
Location
Brisbane
Certainly not the greatest of photos but a rather interesting behavioural observation none the less.
While performing water dragon surveys today I came across this adult male that had killed and was beginning to consume one of the resident females within his territory. While cannibalism is nothing new in water dragons, it is typically adults and sub-adults feeding on hatchlings and young dragons. To my knowledge and that of the people in the lab I am assisting, cannibalism of another adult has not been recorded. Would be interesting to hear if anyone else has observed this sort of behaviour before in Australian agamids.

Also before people ask, I am 98% sure he killed her. I wasn't fortunate to see it, but I had someone come up and tell me one dragon had another by the head while I was recording a separate dragon. Thinking it was mating I quickly finished up recording the dragon I was examining and went over. By the time I got there he had crushed her head and it was over. When I collected her body for dissection it was still warm along with exhibiting damage to the tail further suggesting predation (or at the least mating gone horribly wrong).
I observed him for approximately 15 minutes afterwards were he then began to consume the head. During this period he also prevented another female from coming near the body along with pulling it further into the bushes.

20170109_134818.jpg 20170109_135542.jpg

Cheers, Cameron
 
This seems to show that there's always a chance, however small or large, of reptiles cannibalizing each other, regardless of an individual's size. Did he manage to consume all of her?
 
Last edited:
Not exactly to do with the original post, but I recently witness a water dragon having a feed on some roadkill. Very interesting.
 
Ok, this makes me really scared to house my baby's together...
obviously I'm going to wait till the little one is abit bigger but anyway...

image.jpg
 
Certainly is a good reminder for people that no matter how long two or more reptiles have lived together it doesn't mean everything will always be fine. Nah he didn't. I ended up collecting the body off him after about 15 minutes so that it could be dissected later on to see if she was gravid or ovulating at all.

Hahaha I've seen that as well Aussie_monitors. I was doing a survey and came across a male feeding on a roadkill possum, was an interesting day.

Big enough pit princessparrot and you shouldn't have a problem. Water dragons are a much more tolerant species to living in groups, just have to watch for dominance issues but you shouldn't have a problem. This is the first time anyone in the lab had heard of an adult cannibalising another adult. Cannibalism in general doesn't seem that common with only another four times I know of it being observed while surveying. Of course we could just be missing it. All but this one event have been adults and sub-adults predating on hatchlings and individuals less than a year old.

Cheers, Cameron.
 
What are the chances of a water dragon eating a bearded dragon? Just I housed to small/young ones together and they seemed like best a friends but the water dragon suddenly took off in growth and is now more than twice the beardies size!

this was them before

image.jpg
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest posts

Back
Top