# How to determine the sexual of sub-adult tegu



## Riplee (Oct 25, 2011)

You can know your sub-adult tegu sexual by your touch feeling. 

Here is the different. in the red cycle of male there is a little hard gibbose point, you can feel it and most of time you can see it. 

Picture of Male. 
[attachment=3474]

Female has not that little part. Touch feeling very smooth. 

Picture of Female. 
[attachment=3475]

This is an easy and certain way to determine your sub-adult tegus. 

Hope it is helpful.....


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## frost (Oct 26, 2011)

thanks for sharing, ill have to see if my b/w has that.


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## numarix (Oct 28, 2011)

For me it was alittle hard to tell the differences of those pictures.


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## jondancer (Oct 29, 2011)

numarix said:


> For me it was alittle hard to tell the differences of those pictures.



I think you can feel the difference not see it.


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## TeguBuzz (Oct 29, 2011)

You feel something like a bead in males, and nothing is felt in females.


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## dragonmetalhead (Oct 29, 2011)

The femoral pores on the males feel, for lack of a better word, "fuzzy" to the touch. Kodo is the first male lizard I've had and the first time I felt them, I thought he had a bit of debris stuck in his cloaca and it still weirds me out a bit. Also, how the hell did you get those pics? Whenever I try to secure Kodo to check his underside, he thrashes like a madman and I usually get a tail slap to the face.


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## Bubblz Calhoun (Oct 29, 2011)

_Femoral Pores/glands are not the same as Spurs, males have both while females only have femoral pores. Femoral pores are the scent glands that line their thighs. You can see them on both pics that Riplee posted, it's a line of scales with tiny holes in the middle along the thighs. They run the length of the thigh on each side towards the bottom.

On the female you can see a section of the femoral pores in the circle on the left. On the male if you look at the black spots at the bottom of both of his thighs the femoral pores run right through them.

Spurs are found lower than femoral pores just under the cloaca on both sides on males. _


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## Rhetoric (Oct 30, 2011)

Neat I never noticed the pores. The spurs are like little zits or bb's. As they get older/larger you can see them on the males without having to really "look" for them. When my males are basking I can see them at the base of their tails. I was only able to see/feel one on Rango for a while. His second spur wasn't too noticeable until this last summer. 
Depending on the age of your tegu you won't be able to tell the sex. In argentines, they usually don't start to show spurs (if male) until they are closer to 18-24". I am not sure if it is the same for colombians since they tend to stay smaller then argentines.


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## Miles Dad (May 1, 2012)

Still learning, is the red cycle the shed cycle?


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## TatianaTegu (Aug 7, 2012)

Riplee said:


> You can know your sub-adult tegu sexual by your touch feeling.
> 
> Here is the different. in the red cycle of male there is a little hard gibbose point, you can feel it and most of time you can see it.
> 
> ...


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## Bananasplit121 (Aug 20, 2012)

Does the color of the belly have anything to do with the sex?


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## chitodadon (Aug 20, 2012)

My 7 week old boy has them already

Sent from my LG-P999 using Tapatalk 2


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## Bubblz Calhoun (Aug 20, 2012)

_Color of belly has nothing to do with sex.
@ Chitodadon, post pics you may be confusing femoral pores with the spurs or buttons if it's 7wks old._


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## chitodadon (Aug 20, 2012)

The Breeder I got.him.from.told.me he is a male

Sent from my LG-P999 using Tapatalk 2


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## chriswizz (Jun 9, 2013)

Here's a couple of pics comparing male & female vents these are taken from blue tegus.
1st pic is female & the second pic is the male.


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## TheTeguNovice (Nov 14, 2013)

Thanks for the info I will check mine today,...might have to change his name lol!


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## Roadkill (Nov 14, 2013)

chriswizz, those are excellent photos that can actually demonstrate what I've been trying to say to people about detecting sex in tegus for years. Everyone focuses on the "feel" of those scales, and while that is an accurate gauge, it is a feature that develops later in life. In other words, what we are all taught in school as a secondary sexual characteristic. What those points actually are is, internally, the location where ligaments attach to the integument that anchor muscles running from that point to the hemipenes (I think these are hemipenal retractor muscles, but I could be wrong). In neonates and juveniles, the hemipenes and those muscles aren't being used, so the integument is not being reinforced (and so we cannot feel these points). As they reach puberty, these points thicken, kind of like a callous, and therefore we can feel them. However, from the day of hatching, the hemipenes, the ligaments, the muscles, those are all there, the basic underlying structures are present. If you look closely at those points, one should notice that the scaling around those areas between males and females are distinctly different. I'm not talking about the "raised beads" or the colour pattern (or the fact that the internal cloacal scales of the female are not as everted as they are on the male in these photos, this is something that changes by volition in all tegus), but the area of the "beads" consists of larger scales surrounded by a "ring" of smaller/miniscule scales on the male, while the same area on the female is just larger scales. This orientation is present at hatching because the associated structures are present, and therefore someone with a keen eye to detail can actually sex the tegu as neonates and not have to wait for development OR pull out probes that are highly inaccurate in young animals anyhow. Going back to the school comment on secondary sexual characteristics, people are concentrated on looking for the tegu equivalent of a deepening voice and growth of facial hair, when the 'penis' has been in front of their face the whole time.


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## Renske (Nov 15, 2013)

They have the beats from the day they are born. I can see them with all my offspring. I have now a nest of 28 red babies born 2 weeks a go. I have 17 females and 11 males. And i am 100% sure. People always told me you can not see it till they are 1 year old. But thats not true. Its very easy to see if you know how too look. Specialy if you have some brothers and sisters to compair it with.


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## Renske (Nov 15, 2013)

Here you see a picture of a 2 week old male red. You clearly see the bead.


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## Renske (Mar 6, 2014)

A video of how to sex a baby or adult tegu without probing:


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## Tegu Whisperer (Aug 29, 2015)

dragonmetalhead said:


> The femoral pores on the males feel, for lack of a better word, "fuzzy" to the touch. Kodo is the first male lizard I've had and the first time I felt them, I thought he had a bit of debris stuck in his cloaca and it still weirds me out a bit. Also, how the hell did you get those pics? Whenever I try to secure Kodo to check his underside, he thrashes like a madman and I usually get a tail slap to the face.


Check out my post on how to get an up side down Tegu..in introductions..good luck


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## Joanne Julia (Mar 1, 2016)

Thank you for posting these pictures


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## Moral3x (Jul 20, 2016)

Don't males have prominent cheeks? And at what age or size do they start to show?


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## Radical Reptiles (Sep 25, 2018)

Hey guy's i believe my little boy may actually be a girl But would greatly appreciate conframation.
Yoshi is a B&W Argentine about 16 months old and close to 40" long. He woke up tonight long enough for me to take some pics.
I'm sure it will be obvious to some but could really use some help.


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## Zyn (Sep 26, 2018)

Visually the head looks male and by the looks of
It a wild caught Florida fire belly looks good


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## Radical Reptiles (Sep 26, 2018)

Thanks Syn
cheeks/head have looked male for a while now but not seeing the spurs mentioned here have had me unsure. 
I live in N.Y. and have had him since three weeks old.
At one point I believed his substrate was staining his belly,lol.
Thanks to some research here on TT i now know i have a little fire belly


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## AlphaAlpha (Sep 26, 2018)

I'd defs say male too with head shape and jowls


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## Radical Reptiles (Sep 26, 2018)

Thanks guys!
I was hoping one of the site sharpies could confirm for me w the picture I took ( not easy to hold a tegu's rear while taking a pic)
Actually I feel pretty dumb after reading all the posts and looking at the pictures peeps took the time to post, and yet still can't tell for sure.
Still @ the beginning of the learning curve.


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## Walter1 (Sep 26, 2018)

I can see the enlarged scale cluster. Good photo. Beautiful male.


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## Radical Reptiles (Sep 26, 2018)

Thank you so much Walter!
It's great to finally know for sure


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## EnjoysWine (Oct 11, 2018)

Walter1 said:


> I can see the enlarged scale cluster. Good photo. Beautiful male.



Walter, where do you see enlarged scale clusters there? My untrained eye sees nothing special around the cloaca in that pic.


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## BKing (Jun 17, 2019)

This thread is very helpful Specifically Chrisswizz and renske!! Thanks you two very much.

I have a (1week old ) hatchling arriving soon unsexed (even though I specifically wanted a male) I went ahead and bought him due to his price being amazing, the dealer is legit but CANT guarantee sex that soon, which is understandable! Hopefully I will be able to tell on my own thanks to this thread.


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## Lutchmom (Feb 17, 2020)

Does anyone want to take a guess at my tegus gender? 20 months, 38 inches.


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## Walter1 (Feb 17, 2020)

For its size, I'd expect some jowl development if male.


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## Wickedtactical (May 19, 2020)

dragonmetalhead said:


> The femoral pores on the males feel, for lack of a better word, "fuzzy" to the touch. Kodo is the first male lizard I've had and the first time I felt them, I thought he had a bit of debris stuck in his cloaca and it still weirds me out a bit. Also, how the hell did you get those pics? Whenever I try to secure Kodo to check his underside, he thrashes like a madman and I usually get a tail slap to the face.


Under side of glass.


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## ToadHallBetty (Feb 24, 2021)

dragonmetalhead said:


> how the hell did you get those pics? Whenever I try to secure Kodo to check his underside, he thrashes like a madman and I usually get a tail slap to the face.


I didn't take the pictures but they look like they might have been on a glass table, taken from underneath the table. Good view no,or little, restraint.


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