# Sexing tegus?



## rrcoolj (Jun 30, 2010)

At what size can tegus be sexed accuratly and what signs should I look for? My little guys is nearly 3ft long and i think HE might be a girl. At what size can tegus be sexed accuratly?


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## DMBizeau (Jun 30, 2010)

at 36" you should be able to tell if they have bb's or not. There are a few threads on the forum that show pictures of what to look for.


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## txrepgirl (Jun 30, 2010)

If yours is a male you can feel the bb's on each side of under the vent ( link below ). To be honest with you I don't remember how old mine were when I started to feel the bb's. Sorry. 

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## Bubblz Calhoun (Jun 30, 2010)

_Just like people, some animals mature a little later or earlier than others. I always thought my tegu Tricky was a boy, when his bbs finally showed up I took a few pics and posted them on the thread below. You can see them just below the vent on each side. Kind of makes it look like 2 eyes and a mouth. The first 2 pics are of one bb on each side and the last one is of both.

Besides seeing them you can feel them also, no matter what you call them (bbs, spurs, buttons) they all look and feel the same. They're unmistakable once you have seen and or felt them. With both my males the bbs showed up before the jowls. I don't remember what size Dino was when his showed up. Since he was already sexed when I brought him, so I wasn't worried about it. But Tricky s showed up before he reached 3 ft. 

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## rrcoolj (Jun 30, 2010)

Thanks for the comments and thanks for the links. I will check tommorrow to see if he has buttons.


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## rrcoolj (Jul 2, 2010)

Okay so I felt around the base of his tail and felt nothing. he? is like 29". Is he too small to be sexed or do I have a female tegu?


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## tora (Jul 2, 2010)

It sounds like he should be big enough, if there's no bumps on the sides of his vent, or if there's no lump under the skin in between where the bb's would be then you should probably be prepared for a she.  
I'm not sure at how big they show up, no matter how slow they are at maturing though.


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## reptastic (Jul 2, 2010)

i dont know if there is an actual "size" persay, like bubblz said some mature earlier some later, my red had his bb's since he was 16-17", all the rest of my tegus i assumed were female since they reached 3'+ and never got them. since i have aquired a lager male tegu i can definately see the differences in the males vs. females, so it makes it a bit easier than just waiting to see the bb's pop up.


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## rrcoolj (Jul 2, 2010)

My tegu is supposedly sexed too. I bought mine from Bobby last year as a male but i just have a feeling as he gets bigger that it might be a girl. I know Bobby isn't always 100% on these and I really don't care if it's a male or female but I was kinda looking forward too a male.

I am going to wait until he is a solid 3ft so I know for sure. Like you said maybe he's just late bloomer. I know he grew slower than alot of the tegus on here at first also.


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## JohnMatthew (Jul 4, 2010)

I'd give it more time before making any final decisions, but maybe start trying out some girl names just in case. Boon was going to be renamed to Bane if he turned out female. :-D 

Determining sex on young tegus is basically an educated guess. The good news is there's probably nobody more educated than Bobby. While he doesn't make guarantees, considering the number of tegus he sells each year, not many turn out to be "wrong". As an added bonus, after the year or so it takes to verify sex, these lizards verily have their owners wrapped around their little claw to the point that we couldn't care less :-D (unless breeding is your goal in which case an extra female doesn't hurt either).


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