Male U. Milii attacking female - out of season behaviour?

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Eldaas

New member
Hi everyone,

New to the forum and new to having geckos, so I hope there's an experienced person here who can offer me some advice! I live in Perth in Western Australia. I picked up my breeding pair of Underwoodisaurus milii a couple of months ago and they've been going happily and healthy. Both are at breeding age. The dealer couldn't tell me how old the female is because she was wild caught, but she's full-grown, with the dealer noting she's the largest of her species he's ever seen and they rarely get that large. The male is smaller and is quite feisty, so I would place him as being a little bit younger than her but still a full-grown adult.

Over the last couple of feeding sessions I've noticed a stark uptick in the male's interaction with the female. He's been walking up to her a lot, licking her neck and generally following her around. He will occasionally run the length of their feeding box just to "check up" on her before going back to whatever he was doing. He wasn't doing this before, and until now I've put this down to him just being a little territorial.

Tonight when I put them both in their feeding tank (I pop them in there for half an hour so they can warm up and get those digestive juices going) my male walked up to the female, tail swinging wildly about, and then he lunged and grabbed her by the tail. She was squealing and he was clamping down quite hard, which was incredibly distressing to watch - I care a great deal about my female gecko. After a few seconds he let go and she flattened herself to the ground, still squeaking, and then he wandered off. As I was typing this he has done it twice more, grabbing her by the tail while she's squealing and then flattening herself to the ground. I put a hidey rock in there for her to get some shelter, and when I opened it later after taking him out she squeaked at me as though she was quite scared. I've never heard her make any noise until tonight.

I understand they can get a little rough during mating season and the male gradually asserts his dominance over a female by nipping at her, however I'm slightly concerned that this behaviour may be being displayed too soon in the year and despite neither of them having a lengthy or proper cool-down period this year. I didn't brumate them because I didn't know what condition they were in when I got them at the beginning of winter, and the dealer hadn't started this process off already. They've obviously been a bit cooler considering the room temperature indoors is lower during winter, though I haven't removed their low-intensity heat mat or feeding routine. They've both had quite good appetites until the last couple of days.

Does anyone have enough experience with this species to advise me on whether I need to separate these two, or is this considered "healthy" behaviour? I'm just concerned my female may drop her tail, which brings with it a whole host of problems. I'm more than prepared to separate them but I want to be absolutely certain that I'm not interrupting normal behaviour.

I should note that the female has ballooned in size over the last few days and her once massive tail (it was impressively large) has shrunk in size by about 20% and she's stopped taking food. I had considered that she may be ovulating and I've been checking her for the telltale signs of eggs by flipping her over and checking her abdomen. I've yet to see any large masses resembling eggs, though I've set up a nesting box with sphagnum moss for her just in case.

Thanks in advance!

*Edits for clarity*
 
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Hilde

Hilde

Administrator
Staff member
The first change I would suggest is to feed them separately, that way he can't bug her and she can eat in peace.
Are they housed together? If so, does he attack her then, too?

My milii are housed together, never had any problems. They're kept in groups of 3, one male and two females. I don't know if that makes a difference, sometimes a pair can be a bit problematic.

If he's always bothering her, they need to be separated, living with all that stress won't do her any good. If you do want them to breed, just introduce him to her enclosure for mating purposes.

Mine are never cooled down, and breed regularly. I have read that cooling helps ensure mating, but I haven't had to do that.
 
E

Eldaas

New member
Thanks Hilde. I usually have fed them together with no problems. The storage tub I use is pretty big, so they're not disrupting each other too often. I will start feeding them separately though, at least for now, because neither of them have eaten in days. They are housed together and I haven't seen this behaviour when they're in their main tank, however due to them being nocturnal there is a good portion of their activity I haven't seen lately. I did have a night vision camera trained on them until about a month ago, though the software expired and I held off on purchasing it.

With this uptick in behaviour I purchased the software last night and set the camera up again, and they did have a little interaction during the night. To my surprise though, the female actually sought the male out. She starts off by seeking him out in the hide he almost exclusively inhabits, only to find he isn't there. I've never seen her go in there before. Then the camera shows her walking up to the door of the hide he is in with her tail waving. She starts walking in and then appears to get dragged in the rest of the way and rotates around as she does so. I'd be guessing he's latched onto her neck and pulled her in. Five minutes later she emerges and appears unharmed. He is otherwise leaving her alone in her corner of the tank (under "her" hide) so I'll leave them together for now. She doesn't seem to be that afraid of him if she's actually seeking him out. Do you recommend I remove him if I at some point confirm she's gravid?

I'm encouraged by hearing you don't cool your geckos. I have to say it feels like quite a dicey procedure and not incredibly necessary for me, given this species is endemic to my region. The houses here get quite cold during winter (dips down to the mid teens Celsius/mid to high 50s Fahrenheit) because we're built for the heat, so I imagine there is something of a less harsh cooling period of sorts for these geckos in any event, at least sufficient to get their body clocks going right.

Thanks again!
 
Hilde

Hilde

Administrator
Staff member
If it looks like the female is gravid and being bugged too much by the male, maybe trying to mate again, then I'd separate them at least until she's done laying the eggs. Mine stay together, but like I said, I don't have a problem with fighting. You can keep an eye on them with your camera, so you can see if it's necessary to separate them.

As for cooling, I don't make an effort to cool them, but it might "just happen" with the way I keep them.
Both groups have a heat cable, but it's on a timer, only on for 6 hours per day, all year long. It takes an hour or so to warm up the enclosure when it turns on, so they get heat for about 5 hours, plus whatever there is during the warm up and cooling period after it's turned off. I don't have air conditioning, so in summer the temperature is higher for a lot longer, as much as 12 hours around 26°C to 30°C, cooler at night. In winter, when the furnace is running, the temperature is kept at 20°C. With the heat cable only on for 5 hours, that means they spend most of the day around 20°C. This could be considered cooling, though minimal. It's not as big a difference as they'd get in the wild, but it probably works well enough.

If you turn your heat source off for most of the day in winter, that should work for a cooling period. They do warm up when the heat is on, but they get a good amount of cool time, and as you suspected, it could be enough to trick them into thinking it's winter.
 
E

Eldaas

New member
Thanks again for the advice, Hilde. I've separated the two of them now because the male's aggression was increasing. My camera caught the two of them having a scuffle and it definitely looks as though the female is gravid. The silly thing is she doesn't look gravid when I check her in person - the camera seems to accentuate the shape of the possible eggs. I uploaded the video so yourself and anyone interested could see the kind of behaviour I'm talking about: https://youtu.be/h2ImmQuTuww

As for cooling, my place is much the same. It becomes a sweaterbox during summer, even with the air conditioning going (it's only a wall-mounted unit in another room), and in winter the temperature is around 21c. To be honest I'm going to be more worried about these guys overheating during summer, as I've read that the thick-tails are prone to heat exhaustion.
 
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Magixs

New member
Putting a male/female together anywhere around breeding time, whether you're trying to get them to eat together poo together or sleep together, it will always be "breeding" that dictates what they do..

I've also read and spoke to different breeders and there's a complete mixed review on whether you have to cool them or not to breed.
 
E

Eldaas

New member
Magixs said:
Putting a male/female together anywhere around breeding time, whether you're trying to get them to eat together poo together or sleep together, it will always be "breeding" that dictates what they do..

I've also read and spoke to different breeders and there's a complete mixed review on whether you have to cool them or not to breed.
Click to expand...

That's useful, so thanks! Obviously this being my first year having them I wasn't too sure what period during the year "breeding time" kicks in (reason would have suggested September at the earliest), and whilst there isn't much information readily available on the net I have since been able to piece together at least a suggestion that the breeding season is roughly from July through to February in the southern hemisphere. It looks like these two wasted no time in getting it on!

Either way they've now been separated, and likely for the remainder of the breeding season considering I can only sell/transfer a single clutch-worth of young under my keepers licence.

Thanks again for your reply.
 
Hilde

Hilde

Administrator
Staff member
That video definitely showed they're fighting, didn't look like just a mating scuffle, to me. She should feel much better now that they're separated.

You're right about the video showing the eggs very well. She looks like she's close to laying them.
Milii hatchlings have got to be the cutest of all the species I've bred, nothing comes close.
 
E

Eldaas

New member
Hilde said:
That video definitely showed they're fighting, didn't look like just a mating scuffle, to me. She should feel much better now that they're separated.

You're right about the video showing the eggs very well. She looks like she's close to laying them.
Milii hatchlings have got to be the cutest of all the species I've bred, nothing comes close.
Click to expand...

I appreciate the second opinion, Hilde. With humans aggression is always an unhealthy behaviour, so it's sometimes hard to figure out where the line gets drawn between animals where aggression is a healthy mating behaviour. I had a gut feeling this was fighting as opposed to a mating scuffle, so I take great solace in having separated them and I'm incredibly grateful for your opinion. Thanks again!
 
Hilde

Hilde

Administrator
Staff member
At one point there was what some people might call a "death roll". That's not normal mating behaviour, even if the female fights back. I've only seen that in honest to goodness fights.
 
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