baby beardie behaviors??? - Page 2

Dragon_Slave · 06-14-03, 10:08 PM

Yes... while Eyespy and I both do have LOTS of experience with dragons... Eyespy is older than I, so she has more experience. BUT... I will still continue to state my opinions and share my personal experiences and stories with everyone. Although Eyespy and I aren't getting along too well in the world of beardie research, I hope this will all come to peace soon enough. It's just that we beardie owners are so devoted to learning about our wonderful little creatures that sometimes personal emotion becomes involved. My advice, just stay tuned for more info from both Eyespy and myself, as well as other knowledgable beardie owners. It's so great that we have such a wonderful group of people here, as well as other places in the world.. and the internet! Thank you for reading through all the arguing but I promise, there will be none of that any more... at least, I've stopped myself from arguing any longer.

eyespy · 06-15-03, 02:08 PM

I have no problem with Dragon Slave at all and enjoy a healthy debate.

Erik Pianka, John Fowler, Ray Hoser and Rick Shine all write about waving in the wild population as being a stress-induced behavior so I trust their opinions as they are all well-respected herpers.

Dragon_Slave · 06-15-03, 05:58 PM

I agree Eyespy, that waving can be due to stress in captivity... as well as other things.

eyespy · 06-16-03, 11:35 AM

What other things do you feel bring about waving, Dragon Slave?

Dragon_Slave · 06-16-03, 01:49 PM

Along with stress... I feel dragons just wave to say ''Hey!'' Especially to other dragons. Also, during mating, females are known to wave while the male is on top.

eyespy · 06-16-03, 05:37 PM

During mating, that is a very high stress time and female's corticol levels are through the roof! Females who have never been bred but frequently lay infertile clutches tend to live significantly longer than females who have mated, and stress is considered by most folks to be the differential.

Most times when dragons are in close proximity, whether in the wild or not, their stress hormone levels are also elevated. When they go off on their own to feed, sleep or brumate the levels normalize once more. Reptiles in general aren't social species and most body language is aggression or dominance-oriented.

You know how one beardie will throw his arm over the back of another when they are laying side by side? It looks like hugging but both beardies have very high stress hormones, particularly the huggee. Erik Pianka wrote that it is a way of asserting dominance over a dragon who refuses to show submission.

Dragon_Slave · 06-16-03, 05:53 PM

Wow Eyespy, I didn't know that. Thanks for the info.

Iguanalady · 06-16-03, 06:58 PM

Very interesting discussion. I've never had the opportunity to measure cortisol levels in my animals but would love to get involved in something like that later on in my university career--how is it done. Is it a blood test? I know you can measure catacholamines in mammal urine. I do remember they used to test my cortisone levels just after they took out my adrenal glands to figure out how much I needed replaced by oral meds.

Anyway for my own contribution I can't add much more from the perspective of a breeder/watchful pet owner than you guys have already said. But having a degree in psychology and currently completing a degree in biology at my local university I can say a few things about stress. First of all stress is a normal natural state. If you were not stressed you would be dead. There are good stresses and bad stresses. Gettign married is terribly stressful, so is riding a roller coaster or many other things. They all get your body pumping out the epinephrine/adrenalin and get you keyed up in that fight or flight mode (I dunno if I shoudl be describing marriage as a fight or flight situation hehe)o> Unpleasant things can stress you too. The key to stress is that you are not under constant extreme stress. If that is the case...like if you were in perpetual wedding planning for a year your body woudl suffer from the effects.

But even if you are not under severe stress there are plenty of little stresses to keep you at a constant average stress level. Getting up in the morning stresses me out. Gettign to work on time. Traffic. Work....my boss! Arg! Remembering to get groceries. Homework. They are all little things but they are all stressful. So we are never without stress. When an animal lives in captivity whether it be a bearded dragon or a cat it can be highly stressed by innappropriate conditions (too small a space, filth, improper conditions and food etc.) But if its needs are met the stress becomes less. Daily life is mildly stressful but such is life. Living in captivity can produce higher cortisol levels in wild caught animals but as the generations build and esp. if animals bred are those that have adapted better to captivity than others this can diminish (check out the book Genetics of the Norway Rat for a discussion on this that is interesting). At the same time there is a trade off. In the wild animals are often under a lot more stress than in captivity. There is hunger to contend with during periods of low food availability and there are encounters with predators. Once they adapt to captivity and are being cared for properly these usually do not present themselves as stresses in the animals life anymore. So in a way this is the deal we make with our pets. We protect, and shelter them and give them food and they give us their companionship and put up with living in our world for what we give them. So if you dont give it to them and do it right (inlcuding taking them to the vet if they need it) you have broken a something I like to think of as a very sacred promise.

Anyway that is a little something to think about on the topic of stress. It isnt black and white. Animals get stressed but that's not always bad.

As for times I have seen waving....well I have been breeding for 2 years and keeping reptiles for about 7 or so years and I have seen adult beardie waves pretty much exclusively by females in response to a large male exhibiting signs he might try to breed with her when she is not really that interested. If she is receptive she will do a slow bowing bob. Sometimes a very large dominant female will respond with fast bobs indicating she is not in the mating mood and she will not take any crap from lesser animals such as this presumptious male as she is the alpha in the group and not him! These females will only respond with slow bobs if they are ovulating. In babies I have seen waving at other dragons (esp bigger ones who are bobbing) and I think its serves as a way to sort out their positions in the group--establish a pecking order--but you most often see it when something is happening or changing. Hunting is one instance. I think that the waving is for the benefit of other dragons around who might also be interested in this cricket. It might distract the attention of other dragons so they look at the moving arm and not the cricket this little guy wants or it could communicate something like "if you are bigger and want this cricket I will back off....just let me know". I have also seen waving when a dragon has been taken from one cage and put in an unfamiliar new one. I think this is a function of taking them out of their own territory where they either rule alone or have a place in the social structure of a group and puttin gthem in one where they have no idea where they stand. Even if they dont see other dragons there may be some around so they wave at first in submission just in case saying "Im sorry Im intruding please dont eat me if you are bigger." Once they either have found their place in the new group or established they are the only one in the territory the waving diminishes. Even a bottom of the social group individual waves its arm less often once it knows what its status is.

So I think that waving is more a way of fitting into the social group and sorting out status than a response to stress. Stress from another dragons presence or possible presence is one of the instigators of waving but not the reason for it.

Amanda
Year of the Dragon Reptile Centre
www.yearofthedragon.ca

eyespy · 06-16-03, 10:20 PM

Cortisol checks are done by bloodwork as kidneys will filter out a fair bit of it. In fact, they filter it so well that a thorough necropsy will analyze the kidney tissue for high cortisol levels to see if stress had any impact on the dragon's health prior to its death.

eyespy · 06-16-03, 10:23 PM

Iguanalady, you are quite right about the different stress levels and good vs. bad stress, but cortisol is a "bad stress" marker seldom produced in any significant quantity by reptiles during periods of eustress (good stress) and produced in large quantity during periods of distress (bad stress). That is why researchers choose to study cortisol levels as opposed to adrenaline levels which are affected nearly equally by either type.

raebug2000 · 06-17-03, 06:25 AM

dude, too much info lol.( head swirling) i just wanted to know why figment does the things she does ( she is my first beardie).........
also she gets " upset" hissing and flaring when i try to pick her up.......( i know do the scoop instead of just picking her up......) i admit it's awful cute......will she do this later? i dont think it will be cute when figment is the size of my arm....

raebug2000 · 06-17-03, 06:31 AM

oh iguana lady, figment is a lone beardie.......she is the only one in the tank.......and yes she does wave at crickets i thought it was like " im a bearded dragon and im going to EAT you" mwahahahah ooops sorry got carried away.......i just want to learn everything i can about her.....
the taming thing is coming along well i suppose so long as im doing something she is kewl to hang out with but the moment i stop or sit down she become this miniture juan cortez and goes exploring into everything( only with mommy's supervision of course)

eyespy · 06-17-03, 08:21 AM

I've had little ones that waved at crickets when hunting too. Hunting is a sort of a stressor, they get all psyched up in "fight or flight mode" and sometimes waving happens. I find it adorable but they all seem to outgrow it pretty fast.

Dragon_Slave · 06-17-03, 09:49 AM

If you'd like to know another taming trick, I got this from a few friends of mine:
You put on a loose, dark t-shirt. Then you put the dragon on your stomach or chest... this way, the dragon will more than likely feel safe and will learn that your smell means safety. If this doesn't go well the first few times, keep it up, it WILL eventually work. I did this technique to tame my first dragon, Dimitri, and I had him sleeping like a baby under my shirt a week later.

Good luck with the taming! Keep us all updated!

Iguanalady · 06-17-03, 10:41 AM

Eyespy
That is interesting about how cortisol levels are measured in research...I will have to look into that when I am deciding what kind of research I will choose when I am further ahead in my studies. Are you involved in this kind of research? I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences if you are.

Unfortunatly I need to correct you slightly. Cortisol is always present in the blood. A deficiency is just as serious as too much. Stress--any stress good or bad (your body does not make the same distinctions as your brain does)--causes an increased production. Having a baby is a good stress and as you say it heightens cortisol levels--for humans this occurs during the last trimester. Even a so called good stress can cause harm with the heightened cortisol levels if it is sustained and prolonged for too long. And a so called bad stress like running from a predator will cause virtually no harm at all through heightened cortisone levels if it is a short burst. That is a normal use of the bodies fight or flight response. Stress that goes on longer than it should is what researchers focus on in these studies about the bad effects of cortisol on the body.

The question is--are animals kept in captivity under constant higher levels of stress than in the wild and what levels of cortisol in the blood reflect this? To find this out you need to know what is normal for the animal and this is a very difficult area of study because merely by doing the research you are creating confound after confound. First of all testing a wild animasl.....how do you do this without causing stress? Then testing domesticated animals....well research labs arent the most relaxing places for animals and the testing itself can be pretty stressful. I doubt there will ever be research on this subject which fully answers the question. A psychological approach and a comaprative look at the relative stresses caused to an animal in the wild vs. in captivity is also necessary.