How social are tokays?

[D70Challenger]

Hello, I was planning on getting some tokays within the next few weeks. I never like separating animals from what they are used to. When I buy fish for my reef tank, I always try and get 2 of the same species, when I got scorpions, I got 2 of the same, etc. I know two males cannot be housed together. but would 1 male be happier with just 1 female in the terrarium? or would it be better if it was a housing of 1 males, 2 females?
Thanks for the input.

 

[Kita]

That depends on if you intend to breed them and on the animals themselves. Two breeding females often eat each others eggs and if only one pairs with the male then they could team up against the 'outcast'. Once I actually had two young females housed together and one attacked the other viciously enough that she snapped her spine. Females can sometimes be as territorial as males.

 

[NicKtheGreeK1997]

There is NO reason to house them together, unless if you are trying to breed them. You don't want to have a heavily injured gecko and running from vet to vet. Better keep them seperately.

 

[Riverside Reptiles]

The answer to this is that they are not social at all. In fact, they tend to be quite territorial. Females will often tolerate each other, but they do not desire or need "a friend". You can keep a male with a female, but even with that you take risks. I house all of my animals individually and only place them together when it's time for breeding.

 

[Ingo]

I do disagree quite wholeheartedly. Tokays do in fact very tightly bond to a single mate if given the opportunity. Bonding however takes time (months, but gets even stronger with years), but once estayblished, the pair bond is very tight.
If you want offspring from one male with multiple females, you thus should keep the male alone and only transiently (few weeks to few months) introduce the females for mating. If one stays longer with the male, the male most likely will not accept other females anymore for a long time.
Tokays also take care of their offspring and in adequately sized territories males can even tolerate their full grown sons.
A big tokay family with offspring of all sizes is fascinating to watch, but you need a tank of a few hundred gallons. However, tokays normally do NOT tolerate other non related tokays of the same sex. Only few females may tolerate other females, but well bonded pairs normally do not at all tolerate additional females. That may only work for weakly bonded young pairs.
IMHO the best way to keep tokays is keeping one pair in the same enclosure (65g and moire) and leaved their offspring in there for about six months (if enclosure is 150g and up).
Thats the most natural situation and you will have lots of opportunitiy to watch fascinating interactions.
There even is some tenderness between long time bonded male and female tokays which you would not expect from a reptile. Leave a pair a few years for full bonding and you will see...
By the way: If you remove the female of a longtime bonded pair, the male starts calling all night, sometimes even all day and does not stop if other adult females are introiduced but only, if the original female is put back in the tank.

Best regards

Ingo

 

[T-ReXx]

I have to agree with ingo. Tokays do in fact form tight pair bonds when housed as compatible pairs from what ive seen. Pairs spend quite a bit of time together in my collection and show some interesting behaviors. However, that is for compatible mated pairs. Same sex animals almost always fight or one bullies the other. And if a pair is not compatible things can get very violent. So while tokays don't need a mate they are social to a degree.

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[Riverside Reptiles]

IMO pairing is not the same as being social. At least, not in the way the OP was inquiring about. Pairing is needed by most species in order to reproduce. Being social is the desire to be with multiple individuals. I don't think that tokay prefer the latter.

 

[Ingo]

To me the type of pair bonding seen in tokays well fulfils the criteria for being social. Especially if compaired to mating behaviour of truly nonsocial species like Phelsuma.
Also hatchlings and juvenile tokays do tolerate each other and interact even across large size differences as long as they belong to the same family. And of course parents do protect their offspring.
Hence, while tokays clearly do not belong to the same category as highly social animals like wolves, geese, sheep and the like, they still clearly show social behaviour to a degree, which is worth mentioning and which should be accounted for by the keeper of captive specimens.
Best regards

Ingo

 

[billewicz]

I have seen the same social family behavior in over 150 pair and their offspring. The only place I differ with Ingo is how long to keep the young offspring in the enclosure.

Size and room for multiple territories is key. I'm not able to provide huge enclosures for each family group so there is just not enough room for the young males or females to find enough space from the adult pair once they reach maturity.

I usually pull the young males at 5 months or they may drop a tail. Older juvenile females will get run off by the adult female. This is noted by nips and heavy bites to the lower back as Kita has observed and I will pull them as well.

Since I am still working with a majority of imports to establish various morphs, it is ill advised for me to leave a wild caught female paired together through the entire year. She will be poorly 'developed' to handle the heavy egg production typical of captive pairs. As we have noted in other threads, she will become exhausted and pass from kidney failure which is typically incorrectly noted as egg binding.

So, I typically pull the male for 4 to 6 months and allow the offspring to be raised up with the adult female. In some cases I have allowed the oldest male offspring to breed the mother to facilitate line breeding. In all other cases I re-introduce the original male next season after the mother has rested.

I too have noted that the segregate males do not tend to take well to other females while on leave from their long-term partner.

In the super large enclosures and the actual reptile rooms where Tokay pairs have enough space to find their own corners, I have seen all manor of acceptance within the Tokay 'community'. In one room where Tokay run free to clean up loose crickets, I saw a dominate female eat the eggs of the other two females in the room. When I removed her, the other two females, (siblings to each other), pooled their eggs with the third female I let loose with them. When I found their egg laying site, there were 21 eggs in a double row down the wall with only the top pair starting to hatch out.

There was no 'nursery' there 4 months before.

As to the original question, for the average enthusiast, keep them separate like Ethan or as a pair. Enjoy!

Michael' Tokay Hoard @ www.billewicz.com

 

[Kita]

Actually the two I was referring to were unrelated juveniles that were still 6 months+ from sexual maturity, otherwise I would not have put them together. I expect such behavior from mature females, wild caughts and captive breds, since I've seen it in both, but not from the youngsters. An unfortunate learning experience to say the least.