[tombo46]

I thought I'd put this in the general lizards section as it's relative to all lizards really...

I thought I'd post this to show people how important it is to keep a very close eye on animals when pairing up. I consider myself a bit OTT when it comes to monitoring my animals but even I got caught out. I use a CCTV camera to keep an eye on my Tokays when I pair them up and up to just I've had a few good matings with no aggression. Had a couple of the usual mating wounds which were treated at home. I paired up my patternless powder blue male with my yellow spot female last night and watched them on the TV for 3 hours before retiring to bed for the night. They showed no aggression and both of them seemed receptive towards eachother showing typical pre-mating behaviour. No mating actually took place while I was watching though. Feeling content with the pairing I went to bed. When I awoke I found this...







An hour later I was at the vet and the wound was being cleaned up. It was the first time I used the vet (Ian at ARK vets in Killamarsh/Sheffield) but he did a fantastic Job of cleaning it up. I've now got antibiotics for 2 weeks and an F10 bath every day. All being well she should be fine now she's in a sterile viv with sterile hides. Amazingly enough she stayed nice and bright the whole way through without showing any signs of stress.

Here's how she looked a couple of hours later...











As you can see he's made a real mess of her. damage to the body tail and head. I took a look back on the footage and found it only happened about half an hour after I went to bed. I'll pop it up for anyone to see who might be interested. The male is up on the top right and the female is on the bottom right at substrate level. You can see their eyes quite clearly. Anyway, here it is...

Male Tokay Aggression - YouTube

So in conclusion. Regardless of species, it is immensely important you keep an eye on pairings as appearances aren't always as they seem and all this happened in less than 2 MINUTES.

[Riverside Reptiles]

Ouch! That's a painful looking injury. And you're right, this can happen with most any herp breeding. Loosing limbs or even death are not uncommon. People have this assumption that they can just stick a male a female together and end up with a happy couple, but that's simply not the case many times. This is a good example. Thanks for posting it. I hope that she heals up well. It'll take some time, but it should heal up alright with proper antibiotics and a clean environment.

[Evozakira]

Wow poor girl! I hope she get all better for you

[Barnaby]

Hollee...

Damn! Poor girl...
Hope she gets well!

[bawner00]

that vet did a great work, hope she gets better!!

[billewicz]

The only time I've seen this is when I've pulled a male Tokay from one pairing and put him in with another female. She tore him up. My thinking was he still had the other girl's 'sent' on him. This has been noted with Leachianus gecko. So now I give the parties a separation period before pairing with another mate.

Tokay can be amazing healers. I'd like to she how she looks six months or a year from now.

Good luck,

Michael