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Posted by cwatbay on September 15, 2002 at 22:25:01:

In Reply to: Behavioral question... posted by phunkeyphish on September 15, 2002 at 20:18:03:

Iguanas in the wild are territorial - because of food sources, available females, basking spots, etc. - an iguana will establish its territory and defend it. Additionally, iguanas and most lizards tend to be creatures of habit and familiarity. Iguanas may investigate to a certain extent, most certainly new objects in their protected territory, but they will pretty much stick close to home or at least keep their home territory within sight.

In direct answer to your question, your ig wants to stay close to it's home ( ie: the bathroom ) not only because it is familiar with it, but also because it has the need to keep it within sight to defend it against other igs (something that from your posts seems unlikely at this time). So in other words you have at least three factors keeping your ig close to the bathroom, (1)familiarity; (2)defense against intruders; (3)force of habit.

For example,in my house I have three igs, a monitor and a tegu. This igs are territorial (as is the monitor). The two male igs have staked out their territories and may on occasion meet on common ground. They pay close attention to each other when one ig starts to roam and gets within 10ft of the others territory, but so far, neither of them has breached the other's domain. They have met on common ground (unclaimed land) and have only tongue flicked each other (they were on their way to the bath room). The other ig which is female has more or less staked out her area as her cage and the room in which it is in, more nothing more. The monitor has claimed his cage and his pooping spot in another room, but other than that, he hasn't claimed any other area.

This dovetails into your question about the pooping part. From what I have observed, igs, monitors and tegus have a tendency to poop away from their cage/home territory. The precise reason to me is unknown, however based on observed behavior and brain development I would venture a few guesses: (1) in the wild igs go out and just poop - however the poop falls down from the trees and on to the ground which is unclaimed territory - ie: someone elses place. This keeps their territory clean.(2) pooping someplace else keep predators away, since the predators will be checking out the poop which is far from the territory of the ig.

My igs have been taught through continous repetition to poop in the bathroom, so they poop there though habit and it also happens to be away from their territories. The monitor poops in the same place in the same room (so far), so I have put a piece of carpet there for him and he is getting into the habit of it. Unfortunately, the tegu goes everywhere, so I am still working on that.

Sorry for the long reponse, but behavior really has no simple answers.

Follow Ups:

Re: Your question: phunkeyphish 09/16/02 (1)
- Re: Your question: cwatbay 09/16/02 (0)