Well, last night I saw two of my leopards pairing up. This would not be a problem if they were a male and a female. I keep 4 females together and one of them just start biting the other tail, than the neck and so started trying to get both cloacas close. I took the pseudofemale out of the terrarium just to convince myself I didnt sex it wrong and that is. Its a female, incubated in females temp (28 celsius) so its not a hot female. Have anyone experienced this?
Pseudocopulation in leopards
- Thread starter Gekkotan
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MauricesExoticPets
New member
It is a dominance thing, never the less I would find it very interesting if any eggs produced were viable.
There are a number of geckos, monitors, snakes, etc. that are able to reproduce without males, and it is not 100% out of the question that it could happen in leopard geckos at some point in their existance.
Chances are likely as good as your chances of winning the lotto with a ticket you purchased after finding a hundred dollar bill in a trailer park. But it could happen ... I suppose.
Maurice Pudlo
There are a number of geckos, monitors, snakes, etc. that are able to reproduce without males, and it is not 100% out of the question that it could happen in leopard geckos at some point in their existance.
Chances are likely as good as your chances of winning the lotto with a ticket you purchased after finding a hundred dollar bill in a trailer park. But it could happen ... I suppose.
Maurice Pudlo
Hey Maurice. To be honest I never thought about partenogenesis leopards, besides it envolves pseudocopulation in Aspidoscelis and Cnemidophorus species. I just imagined this behavior on the geckos are more related in dominance-submission situation. Just got curious if this is commonly observed in all-females terrariums.
thanks
thanks
MauricesExoticPets
New member
It is common, especially when there is a high population density, but also when a particular gecko feels it needs more than is provided by its caretaker.
It could be wanting more room, food access to hides, heat, anything really.
Or she might just be interested in her female cagemates, something I have seen reports of in some male snake never being interested in breeding females sort of thing.
I rarely see psudocopulation in my mourning geckos, and they produce like clockwork.
I would increase the enclosure size and available hides and see what happens.
Maurice Pudlo
It could be wanting more room, food access to hides, heat, anything really.
Or she might just be interested in her female cagemates, something I have seen reports of in some male snake never being interested in breeding females sort of thing.
I rarely see psudocopulation in my mourning geckos, and they produce like clockwork.
I would increase the enclosure size and available hides and see what happens.
Maurice Pudlo
I was wondering what size cage you had them in too. Also, how many geckos are in there? We have to remember that though many of us keep out Leopards in Colonies (Myself included) They are not super social creatures and do not live in colonies normally. There's going to be shows of dominance and aggression. I'd keep that one separate from the others, otherwise you'll have more aggression on your hands and possibly somebody getting hurt.
MauricesExoticPets
New member
Two hides per gecko, one in the warm heated section and one in the lower temp area that is humid would in my opinion be best.
5 hides does not support the needs of the geckos in the enclosure in the best way possible. There aren't enough hides for all of the geckos to be humid or warm and dry at the same time and do this alone.
I think geckos desire alone time much more than we give them credit for. Humans like company to some degree, up to a point where we get that feeling of being in a crowd elbow to elbow and we start to get edgy.
Some people can't cope with even a small crowd or gathering of people that don't exactly invade your personal space but just being there is adding to the volume of activity and noise of the situation.
And there are some people that don't mind being packed like sardines.
I think you have a mixture of gecko personalities that have different tolerance levels for being around other geckos. Providing more hides so each gecko can find its own will help reduce stress and conflict for this limited resource.
If that does not improve the situation increasing space or dividing the group will.
Maurice Pudlo
5 hides does not support the needs of the geckos in the enclosure in the best way possible. There aren't enough hides for all of the geckos to be humid or warm and dry at the same time and do this alone.
I think geckos desire alone time much more than we give them credit for. Humans like company to some degree, up to a point where we get that feeling of being in a crowd elbow to elbow and we start to get edgy.
Some people can't cope with even a small crowd or gathering of people that don't exactly invade your personal space but just being there is adding to the volume of activity and noise of the situation.
And there are some people that don't mind being packed like sardines.
I think you have a mixture of gecko personalities that have different tolerance levels for being around other geckos. Providing more hides so each gecko can find its own will help reduce stress and conflict for this limited resource.
If that does not improve the situation increasing space or dividing the group will.
Maurice Pudlo