Re: PH Meliss

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Posted by PH Meliss on November 21, 2002 at 10:51:09:

In Reply to: PH Meliss posted by Iguanamom on November 19, 2002 at 22:41:25:

:I also took a measurement of his SVL tonight. His SVL is 7 inches. SO from the chart on your sight if he is actually 18mos old he might be a little small.

I don't remember...have you had him since he was a hatchling? If so, things to recheck would be environment (day/night temps and cycles, diet, and vet check for internal parasites)...

>>Ozzy's femoral pores are more developed than that one was. I guess maybe I was just expecting them to stick out a little further.

If you can see that they are differentiating in size (the ones nearest the torso are larger in diameter than the ones at the knee end of the row), then that would be female, while the diameter of the male's pores would all be be enlarged, though the ones near the knee would be a little smaller than the hip-side ones. While both males and females have waxy plugs (not to be confused with seminal plugs) in their femoral pores, the plugs grow at a faster rate in sexually mature males during their breeding season as they do more scent marking during that time. So, that's the only time you're going to see the protruding plugs (though, depending on the individual iguana and social situation, the protruding plugs may continue beyond breeding season...)

>>But boy does he have an attitude. When we got him out tonight to measure him, I was petting the top of his head, and he had his eyes closed, seemed quite calm and then all at once whamo he tried to bite me,

You either touched something that hurt, or he's doing the "I love this! Wait!! I'm not supposed to like this!!! ::chomp!!!!::" thing that so endear many not-yet-fully-tamed igs to their humans... ;)

>>Thankfully he is small enough his bites don't hurt much, just hope he tames down before he gets big enough for those bites to do some damage.

Just keep working with him and it will happen. ;)

>>But honestly after my recent experience of grooming my male himilayan cat, who has huge fangs that he is not afraid to use, those little lizard teeth don't faze me too much.

Well, don't get too cocky - those little lizard teeth, while they won't get much bigger in size the bigger he gets, will still be sharp enough that they can severe a finger or take off the tip of a nose. I know of a couple of people who have lost digits, one who has had her chin remodeled, and one who recently narrowly missed having her juglar vein slashed. I myself type with only nine fingers as the flexor in one of them was cut by an iguana bite - a bite from my tamest iguana, btw, one that happened because I wasn't paying attention and zigged my hand when he was expecting me to zag.

In fact, the only bites I've received have been from tame iguanas: one with impaired vision who mistook my hand for the bite of banana I was offering him, and the other from a sweetheart of an iguana who kept trying to mate with me. So, tame and socialized does not necessarily mean the chance of bites is completely eliminated. ;)

>>LOL Well hubby is making pretty good progress on the cage. All that is left to do is the door and the top, so with in a few days Ozzy will have his new cage.

Great! Sounds like you have both been working hard to get his new home built and outfitted...

Let us know how it goes!

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PH Meliss

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