Tails Bitten Off

[Dicco]

Hey guys, I woke up this morning to find that my Water Dragon had had the end of its tail bitten clean off. Not long after noticing I saw that the smaller barbata was missing the end of it's tail too. The tank has two barbata of similar size, and a other barbata and water dragon wich are a bit saller. They've been living together fine for about 6 months, there hasn't been any signs of dominance, none are sexually mature and they are bloody well fed.

The two injured animals were put into a 2 foot aquarium with a bare bottom, a water container a rock and log as well as some paper towels to hide in if threatened. I immediately put betadine on the Water Dragon's wound, but the beardie's had already scabbed over. The two lager lizards have been seperated to prevent another possible incident and the victims seem fine except the obvious.

Has anyone ever heard of this, have I taken the right action?
Cheers Guys

 

[serpenttongue]

Yeah this will occur when there are smaller specimens kept with larger specimens, regardless of species. Beardeds are almost always the culprits and it doesnt matter how well fed they are. I've seen a well fed adult bearded in the middle of swallowing a 30cm long water dragon :shock: Beardeds can be real terrors.

I think its time to keep them apart, or at least in a much larger enclosure.

 

[Dicco]

The enclosure is 6 foot and the largest barbata is 15cm SVL at a aguess, looks like they'll just have to stay seperate till the pits done and their all the same size, thanks a lot ST, your always a great help.

 

[serpenttongue]

No sweat,dude

 

[munkee]

Yeah the beardies can be a menace. I got the runt of the litter with the ones I had. She got her head crushed by the big male. He had grown much faster than her and I was a noob at lizards. Gotta be careful

 

[splitty]

Dont know if this applies to your case but my housemate had one of his female Central Netteds tail nearly chewed right through at the end by what had to be a large cricket. The CND was about 6cm SVL at the time. The tail ended up dying and falling off with no other problems. I would have thought that the Netted would have run off but if they do it at night then maybe they are in a deep sleep ?? :?:

Cheers
Splitty

 

[foxysnake]

Amazing just how nasty lizards can truly be!

 

[Dicco]

Yeah, I didn't expect this from them, thanks for your help guys, splitty, I've heard similar cases involving crickets, but these guys looked like the had been bitten off. I'm uploading some pics of them to my gallery, there's pics of the victims, the suspected culpret and for those who are interested I threw in some pics of the Hybrid, I didn't want a hybrid and bought it as a pure barbata but I now seriously believe it's got some vittie in it. Broad head, strait crest at back of head, tongue is a pinky orange(barbata have sulfur yellow mouths, vitticeps have pink). I'll put up a link to it in a tick.
Cheers

 

[Dicco]

Ok, here's the link to my album and a pic.

http://www.aussiepythons.com/index.php?set_albumName=dicco&name=gallery&include=view_album.php