Dark Beards

[atw]

When does a beardie make it's beard black? I know that males will darken their beards as part of courtship behaviour but are there other situations under which this tends to occur?

As well, do only males do this or can females also do it?

Adam

[reptiguy420]

i dont know how to sex a beardie at the moment, i thought i had a male till i went to the local pet shop here in Michigan.They had two almost totally cream color beardies, cept 1 had a dark dark black beard.The one with the black beard was bobbing its head at me and walked right up to the glass.Mine never does that, then the other one kept waving at me, lol.Petshop owner told me the one with the dark beard was very "dominant" and was a male, the other was female.So with the little knowledge i have about beardies(its the girlfriends pet)i would say the male have the dark beards...but im not for sure.Good Luck!

[drewlowe]

The males are the ones who tend to get the black beards, but females can also turn their beards black. The most common occurance of it is when they are mating, but they can also show it when they are stressed, scared, or trying to show their dominace.

Repti guy is right most males will bob their head and females will do the arm wave, unless you have a domainate female.

jamie

[atw]

Thanks for responding. I find the whole issue confusing.

In terms of arm waving, I have 2 beardies that used to be kept together until the 'female' grew significantly larger. When they were together, the female used to do arm waving but now that they are apart, the male does it. I have also seen him doing it when he is stocking crickets... it is really funny. I have heard that although females tend to do arm waving more than males, the arm waving can mean many different things and can occur in different situations. Smaller bardies, for example, will often do it to larger beardies in other cages so perhaps that is why the male was doing it…

After separating the 2, the female started to get too big for her cage and one day I saw her puffed up and black while she was scratching to get out of the cage in the direction of the other beardie. When this happened, I said 'this is male' and the little one is a female but now I am not sure. Since I have moved her into a larger cage I have not seen her go black but she does hiss when she is shedding and I try to handle her.

I have tried sexing one of them visually but I really wasn't sure. I am going to try again but I am curious, has anyone else noticed that females tend to tolerate being handled more than males? That is what I am seeing if my male is indeed a male and the female is female.