First Hatchling of 2006

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StickyToes

New member
Hey everyone!
I thought I would share a quick pic of our first phantasticus hatchling of 2006.
phanthatchling06004.jpg

Hopefully this one's sibling will hatch in the next day or 2.
I'm going to try and get pics of all the juvies we are raising up in the next couple of days, and when I do I'll share them here for everyone!
We are going to have a very busy season as we have quite a few eggs on the go and the adults have kicked it into high in the last couple of months!
Thanks for looking! :)
 
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Protean

New member
good luck on your year. I'm quite jealous. none of my geckos have laid any eggs other than inferts. Maybe i need to move again... too hot and dry over here in Los Angeles.

Jason
 
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StickyToes

New member
Thanks for the compliments everyone!
That one's sibling hatched yesterday, along with another little one from a wild caught pair we have. I'll hopefully have the time to take some new pics of the whole clan tomorrow. :D

Jason - It probably does have a lot to do with the warmer temps in LA. My girlfriend's brother was just here for x-mas and he was telling us what it was like during the winter in LA. I fully believe that being able to lower the temps to where we do has enabled us to increase our success rate with this species both in breeding and hatchling survival rates. Try to keep the temps low and you might find better success. :)

Justin - At the moment we have phant and sikore eggs, as well as crested and gargoyle eggs incubating. Our chahoua should start laying any day now! :D

uroplatusguy - I'm curious as to how seeing the face would help you in sexing it. I've never heard of any sexual dimorphism characteristics that involvle facial features in phants.
 
miguel camacho!

miguel camacho!

New member
some people go by the white teardrops beneath the eyes, females sometimes lack them or have them much reduced, but that isnt always the case. its not a very detailed pic youve got, but im already willing to say its a female from what i see.
 
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uroplatusguy

New member
i go by the white markings under the eye method.none of the females that i have or hatched out have this marking. interesting most of the female ebans that i have dealt with have the whit markings. I am also going by the coloration; 3 out ofmy 4 females are red or brown with no holes in the tail, however i have a female that is gray with some green spotting on her back. when i get my brothers camera again i will try and get pictures posted. cant wait to see pics of the whole group.
 
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StickyToes

New member
I have heard of that before...I was just wondering if you were referring to something else. This little girl is the reason why I would say that using that characteristic to base a guess on is unreliable.
DE07-1.jpg

She is 6 months old so I'm pretty sure she is a she. I find that there are several ways of guessing using physical characteristics, but the most reliable one I've found is the size of the spurs at hatching. Males have much more noticeable spurs, and they are usually quite white right out of the egg. I'm sure that in the next couple of months I'll hatch a little female with huge spurs just to refute this theory :roll: , but until now this has held up 100% true for me.
 
miguel camacho!

miguel camacho!

New member
well, i can say from my experience, the best method ive found for reliably sexing females is the following traits: a) lack of notches in the tail, b) less exaggerated spiny scales, c)more of a solid pattern (males tend to be more mottled, but not always the case), and one of the most reliable things ive seen so far is d)the pattern right at the base of the tail. i made a small jpg a while ago from pictures i collected off the internet of different sexes and compared these patterns. this picture is only meant for educational purposes, seeing as before now i only sent it to one or two other people to demonstrate what i meant. some of the pictures within this are mine, but not all, so i apologize ahead of time if your photo was used and you dont appreciate it. if so, let me know and ill remove it ASAP.

malevsfemale.jpg
 
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uroplatusguy

New member
that top female with the white under her eye, looks interesting. i have a male that would love to have her and is the same color pattern as she is. i dont go by spurs but one thing that has always proved right for me is that whe a hatchling is first bor from day one till about day 10, male hatchlings will have a small hemipenal bulge. after about a week or so they have gained some weight and filled out and the bulge disapears. this has worked true on most of my gecko that i have hatched out from my pictus to my phants. nice collection there.
 
Reptiluvr

Reptiluvr

New member
I have never noticed the patterning differences. Great observation. I have seen another great indication of sex. It's not 100% but it's very close. The tails of males almost always have the notches taken out as if eaten by a bug. I have seen one or two males that didn't have this. I have seen a handful of females with notches at the base of the tail, but not any further. I've seen hundreds of phantasticus and this ALMOST always holds true. Smooth tail = female, notched tail = male.
 
miguel camacho!

miguel camacho!

New member
Phantasticus said:
I've seen hundreds of phantasticus and this ALMOST always holds true. Smooth tail = female, notched tail = male.
Click to expand...

I feel the same...
Click to expand...



i beg to differ. half of my males have notches while the other half dont.

one of my first ever offspring surprised the hell out of me one day when i noticed a bulge. before that i was counting on it being a female. i cant say for sure, but im pretty sure i remember seeing a picture way back in the day of a female with notches in the tail. not many, but they were obvious, i remember that much. i figured that was a rarity though.

so id say smooth tail gives higher odds of it being a female, but just dont count your female chickens before they hatch. ;)
 
Bowfinger

Bowfinger

New member
Do those males with smooth tails try to mate with each other? :wink: ...But seriously do they have smooth skin like other females or are the other traits male like? I will have to go back and check if any of my males had smooth tails.
 
S

StickyToes

New member
I definitely agree with Mike that there is no one physical characteristic that is 100% accurate when it comes to sexing young phants. It's one of those things where you have to take all of the traits and make an educated guess...then wait a few months to see if you were right or wrong.
As for the notches in the tail characteristic, I used to have a wild caught female that would put most males tails to shame with the amount of "bug" chews she had taken out of it. I posted this in another thread, but here is a good example of a female with the notch characteristic.
NP01-1.jpg

Her tail looks exactly like her moms!
Interesting theory and great pic Mike. I'm gonna have to go check out all of my males to compare now! :)
 
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