lowlands blotch copulation behaviour

[Richard.C]

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Any one care to take a stab at whats going on here

This is the actual first signs of seen of copulation interest in the lowlands this season,and being its not for of xmas its very very late

[Richard.C]

Ive got sone film footage of it as they were moving around alot to get some good pics but to describe there behaviour it was standard blotchie mating behaviour,fast pursuits,grabbing,back leg scratching at bigger ones vent area trying to lift tail,big one doing the slow tail wag in response,one main difference you will see is biggen was underatandanly getting cheesed off at times and biting back,didnt see if penetration occured but tail was lifted and he did the usual horizontal mumbo behaviour,eventually released and awkwardly still followed big one around until he reinserted swollen hemipene

Not the greatest pics but has anyone noticed the oddness?

[Richard.C]

To calm down all the suspense the biggen is a male as well,hence grtting cheesed off and biting back

Ive seen males grab at any thing that moves,but they just hang on and let go,mostly its because they go after anything that runs early in the peice,this small male though lifted orher males tail like it was a female and went all broke back mountain

Has anyone ever seen this before

[Richard.C]

Loading up some footage on utube

Title

Brokeback mountain blotch style


There still messing around,big males tail wagging and head waving in response,little males climbing all over him with jerky movements and there off and running again

[Scotts1au]

Pretty normal to get chewed up heads around mating time, but wow that is late, you will be lucky to get babies at all, you'll probably be having them indoors in Melb. All of the action finished a month or so ago here, although the males still have the odd skirmish.

This is one of the reasons I don't regard tail wiggling as any real sign of anything other than stress, fight or flight response, certainly not willingness to submit to mating, given that both males and females in stressful situations do it.

[Richard.C]

I wont get babies from this pr scott,lol

I filmed him again and loaded to utube

Title

Brokeback mountain 30 mins later X 2

Thankfully a cold change hit dropping temps so that should shut it down,think i may need to seperate them as big boys getting a bit scuffed up,he bites it on the head when it approaches
But little one just cops it then keeps harrassing,very very odd season im having,just when u thibk you have a handle on things they go and stuff that up,lol

The commotion of those two have got a couple of other males excited to,you will see ones head appear fron the hide at end of vid,oh and big fella getting mated couldnt grab a hold of youngen ,so did what they normally do,grabbed any lizard with in range which happened to be a cruising past eastern


Ive always said the tail wagging and head waving isnt always a sign of a responding female,now i can safely say neither is copulation

This big male i think was ready to mate indoors before i shut them down,his chasing of females all of a sudden and injuring ones leg with a tear was what prompted me to cool them in first place

Weirdo lizards,i give up trying to know what the heck there doing,lol

[kl]

Beautiful looking lowlands.

Kl

[Scotts1au]

I wont get babies from this pr scott,lol

yeh that would be a shock. Give something for Mr. Hoser to write a paper on.

[Richard.C]

Thanks kim,the group i have plus a few of my long termers are quite variable in looks,some are more silvery than others,some quite chocolatey

My poxy fone camera doesnt really do them justice

Checking on them today,its alot cooler today but those two boys arent at it any more,both are actively cruising and often crossing paths,no tom foolery at all,on the posative there both hanging around some of the girls a fair bit ,so not going to seperate for now and watch and see what unfolds

Haha,ahhh mr hoser, hes got a ton of fans out there,lol

[kl]

I've never seen one in person. I have a feeling that if I did I'd want to work with them. I've had a few offers in the past but always from Europe and they were more expensive than alpines. There does seem to be a lot of differences between them but I like the ones that are really light blotched against the dark brown. Are they as willing breeders as highlands?

Kl

[Richard.C]

Yeah equally as willing as alpines to breed,behaviour wise they do the same things,main difference is on average they are smaller than alpines in length and bulk,but like most things there are exceptions,seen some thumping big lowlands over the years,but there not very common

[kl]

I like the idea of smaller size. I'm getting more and more into liking the slightly smaller blue tongue species. Even with the alpines I've noticed that the colors are more intense on the smaller animals.

Kl

[Scotts1au]

I like the idea of smaller size. I'm getting more and more into liking the slightly smaller blue tongue species. Even with the alpines I've noticed that the colors are more intense on the smaller animals.

Kl

Hmmm, might depend on the variants that you have seen, I'm not sure that this statement holds true across the board. Quite often colours, intensities are quite different between adults and juveniles too. Lowlands tend to be very slow growing relative to Alpines.

[Richard.C]

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Something often over looked with average sizes as some have more growth potential than others,in this pic are 4 male vic lowlands,the two on the upper left ,the more brown ones the father of the more silver one,brown one is well over ten now,the lighter one im thinking around 8 or so now,the other two ,u can only see one real well are both in the ten plus years old category as well,breeding these guys i got 2 size classes,tiny tiny ones that look like half grown ones and just stop growing and big big ones

I had pics on here years ago now of that little male which snuck into alpine side of cage and mated with my old alpine/lowlands cross female,ill see if i can find the pics,but back then i said hes barely 30 cm and if so just over,hes the same all these years later,oddly hes been the dominant male for years to,the big male in pic ive never seen try mating,as he usually stays clear or gets picked on

Ive seen alpine equivelent sized lowlands,and these tiny ones to,we get both down here on mornington peninsula,biggest ive ever seen in person was a huge wildcaught male from sorrento that went 61 cm long,big long scrawny old looking male with a massive head

The majority i see down here are more akin to the small male above but you do get a few like the bigger one above as well,its the same with females,but more in bulk,some are huge,long fat things like an alpine in lowlands clothing,others are extremelu weedy and seem to stop around to 40 to 45 cm range

With alpines to,alot of forms seem to be similar to lowlands size wise,the vic alpines are pretty close but females marginally bigger on average,males similar to bigger form lowlands,the nsw southern highlands males ive had have actually been smaller than the vic alpine males,oddlu they both have very very large feet in comparison to all other blotchies ive seen

Its not as straight forward between alpine and lowlands as in the middle between the big on average hulking bluemountains form and the tiny lowlands forms theres a heck of a lot of variety

[Richard.C]

Im really keen to pull finger out and set up some locales of various forms to look into this more,well i love them anywau so a great excuse

Scott theres a dodgey petshop around corner from where i live that have an alpine of some description of mammoth proportions on display,poor things lost a ton of weight in there care and they arent interested in selling it,not the prettiest of alpines but ive not seen one as big ever,supposedly a male to ,makes my 66 cm land mullet look tiny ,its head is northern male like in size to.they dont let u take pics there as they used to be a really bad shop,dead animals still on display and all and had a real bad rep and got complained about alot but im going to ask if i can measure it and take a pic as curiosity has gotten the better of me,its a monster

[freeloader]

Is the aforementioned shop on Springvale road south?
If it is I have reported them to dse/dpi numerous times over the years. It's makes you mad how they still get away with poor animal husbandry and welfare. The manager got the police to escort me from the premises on one occasion.

[Richard.C]

Haha,yep that would be the one,they used to have way to many animals crammed in there,im suprised it took so long for them to pull finger out,they now house alot less animals and its actually a vast improvement to its former days,they probably do better business this way to i reckon as back in the old days it was woeful they were actually still in business

If i hadnt ever been there before id actually say its now not to bad of a pet shop,but yeah hard to forget the past

[Richard.C]

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Gave them a weed out today,this is a freshly shedding scuffed up younger lass thats looking promising,the two males are both pacing the cage but are ignoring each other now,so will keep an eye on them and see what happens