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Unseasonal behaviour: |
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Iowarth Admin Group Joined: 12 Apr 2004 No. of posts: 222  View other posts by Iowarth |
Posted: 17 Oct 2008 As one of the Sand Lizard Captive Breeding Programme members I am privileged to have a colony of these beautiful animals in a large outdoor vivarium - thus I can see their natural behaviour at almost anytime. Yesterday at around 1430 I was looking in the vivarium when I saw the largest male making several attempts to mate. The female appeared receptive and, in fact, coitus was finally achieved and sustained for about 10 minutes. Typically my camera wasn't handy! Today, about half an hour later I saw the performance repeated by the same male with a different female! I append two photographs (not very good quality I'm afraid - they didn't choose good positions!) In the first photo you can see the male has grasped the female who is obviously receptive and is lifting her tail invitingly. In the second you can see coitus again achieved and this was again sustained for about ten minutes. Now I have studied Lacertids in both the wild and in captivity but have never before seen such unseasonal behaviour as mating in October. But, if you know better........ Presumably this reflects our rather strange non-summer coupled with absolutely beautiful days from mid-September to present. The last two nights were 9C and daily temperatures 16 yesterday and 15 today - albeit really toasty warm in the sun! Any thoughts anyone? Chris Photo 1  Photo 2  Chris Davis, Site Administrator Co-ordinator, Sand Lizard Captive Breeding Programme |
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arvensis Senior Member Joined: 15 Mar 2006 No. of posts: 445 View other posts by arvensis |
Posted: 18 Oct 2008 The weather has been very weird as of late - it's more like spring than autumn! Perhaps the unseasonal weather has confused the lizards? It would be nice to see some more pics of the outdoor vivarium Chris. Cheers, Mark Hampshire Amphibian and Reptile Group. |
- Unseasonal behaviour |