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Looking for advice- Young tegu tried to bite others head like it was food

RedxRuin92

New Member
Messages
4
Hi, this is going to be long but would really appreciate some experienced opinions..

I have a 6 months old male (confirmed, he flashed me his penes while pooping last week) and a 5 month old female. They are NOT housed together, but get supervised exploration play dates. Usually, they walk around the top of the males enclosure and then curl up in fleece pouch blankets and sleep. The female sometimes seeks the male out and goes and lays with him.
I’ve been doing this 3-5x times a week for 15 min-2 hrs depending on my schedule. Never an issue before (famous last words).
My goal is for them to be familiar with each other before the male hits guberty and thus can be reintroduced when older.

today, the female was laying on a pad I put out and feed them on. There was no food left, just remnants from wiping their faces on it. They had been out for about an hour at this point and then the male came out of his pouch and walked over to her and started licking her face and it seemed odd so I stood up and walked over and then he just gently opened his mouth and tried to freaking bite down on her head like it was a reptilink!! He didn’t leave a mark, I startled him right away by going to grab him and exclaiming “what the F!”.

I am confused and upset. I mean, there’s no way he can think her head is food, right?

I have come up with 4 possible scenarios

1. he is going into early guberty and like a young male, is trying some moves but doesn’t know what he’s doing
2. My female is a male and he’s asserting dominance
3. He really did smell the leftover food crumbs and just decided to chomp down like a dumb dumb
4. He is a cannibal

I should also mention he is extremely well fed, like he eats every day and has a big plump tail. Obviously I will clean up after they eat more diligently moving forward, but someone please share their thoughts.

thanks
 
Last edited:

Debita

Well-Known Member
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1,218
Location
Prescott, AZ
Lol...funny story. Your male and female can be housed together no problem. When the male goes into his breeding season, he can be brutal. I had to rescue my female, because I thought he was going to damage her. She was younger than him and not fully grown at the time though. Tegus are one of the only lizards that build nests, and from what I understand, the females get aggressive during that time, and then, the males are in trouble!

This sounds more like a mistaken food issue - or guberty. Their breeding season is usually in the spring, so we're a little early for that but you should be prepared to protect her and keep her separate at that time. I had a lot of help from the members on this forum when it happened to me - I also caught it before it became damaging. About 2 months later, they were back together again. Not sure it takes that long, but I wanted to be sure. They were just back to being buds.
 

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