Peteyfrmcal

[pete]

Hi everyone, Pete here. I bought a tegu june of 2015. He hibernated that year from Oct.- March of this year. He went down again in Oct for only 1 month and then woke up!! He wakes up and bask for a good 4 hours then goes back down. I have been feeding him only a little bit every other day. Any comments on why he won't go down for the full winter? Thanks. I will post some pics later.

 

[pete]

Is there anyone in the Baltimore area that has Tegus?

 

[Walter1]

Is there anyone in the Baltimore area that has Tegus?

He has to do what he has to do. Some will sleep three months, coming out to bask once/ week.

Post a photo. We love pics of members' tegus.

 

[Walter1]

Duration of brumation among individuals even changes over time.

 

[pete]

Thanks you guys

 

[Dee-Dee Idrais]

My girls Rockie has been down for nearly 2 months. She only woke up a couple of times in that perid. My boy Dozer is fighting it. To him brumation is over rated. Gets up every day, even if for a couple of hours, at different times of day and causes trouble as usual. Last night he was unwrapping gifts with us and trying on his new hoodie (too small btw) lol

 

[pete]

Awesome. Thanks for the input.Teggy still gets up and bask for hours. I feed him a lot less, every other day. He also likes his baths I give him. The one thing I do notice is he does not have major shits! He poops very little. Mostly the white part, and not the really stinky brown. I wonder though if he will go down for the rest of the winter. My instincts say no

 

[Roadkill]

As one of the few scientists that have looked into hibernation in reptiles/brumation, there is a lot of gaps in our understanding of the phenomenon. Unlike hibernation in mammals, which was first characterized by behaviour and later intensively studied on physiological grounds, the term brumation appears to have been coined primarily to make the condition distinct from mammalian hibernation, and done so exclusively (and quite shallowly) on physiological criteria. There really is no behavioural component to the definition of brumation, whether because no one has set out to quantify it (which is somewhat true, although Gordon Ultsch has tried to put together all known accounts thereof) or because there is such a wide range of behaviours that, until further data is gathered, to try characterizing general behaviours seems a daunting task, it is hard to tell. Meanwhile, most people seem to take a default view that it must be similar to mammals.....a problem-stricken idea as not all mammals in hibernation behave the same (heck, the most common example of mammalian behaviour that most people point to, bears, is by many not even considered hibernation!). Not to toot my own horn, but my research is probably one of the most in-depth investigations into reptile hibernation ever undertaken, and yet one of my colleagues on the team holds the view reptiles are not hibernating unless they are as unresponsive to stimuli as a rock (basically, if you picked it up, you'd think it was dead) while another colleague holds the view that it doesn't matter if they are running a marathon, if it's winter and their metabolism is suppressed beyond temperature mediated ranges, then they're hibernating. That's on the same research team! Then take my most successful cohort of tegus that I studied: during hibernation I had one that was "down" for a full 5-6 months, almost never came out to bask, and would suppress their metabolism so low their heart would stop for 10 minutes at a time - while another only slept constantly for about a week or two at the beginning of the hibernation season, after which resumed a fairly "normal activity" pattern by coming out to bask daily, yet would still fall into the brumation label because the entire winter season did not eat and had a fairly depressed metabolism. The other tegus in that cohort had a range of behaviours in between.

So what's the take-home message on what brumation is? Basically, as it stands, it is a suppressed metabolism beyond temperature effects alone that takes place during the winter season. Not exactly definitive. However, if you are going to be feeding during this period, make sure your tegu can access regular active season temperatures so that they can at least digest their meals properly.

 

[Walter1]

Close enough for me, even if not sound-bite simple!

Radio-tagged males in S. Fl. were down 3 mo. One never came out until brumation was over. Another came out like clockwork once/wk to bask a bit. Variation on the theme.