Very, very confused...

Status
Not open for further replies.
I have three bearded dragons, which have been identified by our vet as two females and one male. The male has very prominent femoral pores; they are barely visible on the other two. I have tried looking for the tail bulges, and I only see them on the male. I've tried transilluminating their tails, but I haven't been able to see anything clearly on the females. None of them have ever laid eggs.

While they each live in separate tanks, I often will let them out to explore around the house. Usually, they ignore each other, but once in a while they will interact.

This morning, I had my two females out, and one rushed at the other and latched onto the back of her head with her jaws. At first I thought it was aggression, and started to try to separate them, but the the biting one mounted her, grasped her with her hind legs, and twisted around to be cloaca to cloaca. "She" then proceeded to go glassy eyed and immobile for about a minute before coming to.

I've seen videos of bearded dragons mating, and this looked exactly like them. Well, I must have been mistaken about the genders, right? So I thought, until a half hour later, they rushed towards each other again. This time, the one that had been mounted previously climbed on top of the the one that had done the mounting, and proceeded to go through the exact same sequence, complete with the glassy eyed swoon at the the end.

I did not actually see hemipenes in either case. Their cloacas were slightly opened afterwards, but not enough that I could see anything unequivocally male.

So, two "female" dragons each in turn mounted each other and proceeded to have what certainly looked like orgasms. I have read that females will sometimes mount each other to stimulate their competitors to cycle their eggs to make them reproductively unavailable. However, do the females simulate mating that closely, including having orgasms? Or do I have gay bearded dragons? Very confused!
 

CooperDragon

BD.org Sicko
Staff member
Moderator
Huh, that's odd. The first one definitely looks male. The first "female" looks male to me but I can't quite tell for sure from the photo. The second "female" also looks male to me. Do you have a stronger light you can try to use to check?
 

Claudiusx

BD.org Sicko
Staff member
Moderator
It's hard to tell from the two pics of the females. Try to get the light to cast a shadow over the tail so that it's more pronounced on picture.

Did you see if there was penetration? Because that would have been pretty telling. However I did come across and ig post two weeks ago of a hermaphrodite dragon who had been proven to both have laid a fertile clutch, and mated with another female which laid a fertile clutch.

-Brandon
 

Blackbeardie

Member
Original Poster
I'll try to post some additional pictures of the two "females"; I just may not have time to do it for another day or two.

They were positioned such that penetration could have occurred, but I couldn't see if it actually happened. In each case, when I turned the mounting dragon over afterwards, their cloaca was partially open, with some pink-purple tissue visible just at the opening. However, nothing was really protruding, and I think I could have either been looking at cloacal lining or a near-fully retracted hemipene. I've seen photos of dragon hemipenes, and I cannot make the call based on what I saw.

I'll admit I was taken by surprise in both cases, and the geometry did not make it easy to see what was going on underneath.
 

CooperDragon

BD.org Sicko
Staff member
Moderator
They still kind of both look male to me. I don't see a distinctive single bump on the first one. The second one does look pretty clearly male in my opinion.
 

Claudiusx

BD.org Sicko
Staff member
Moderator
Agreed the second one looks Male but honestly the positioning isnt ideal for sexing.

If you could keep the dragon flat on the ground and arch only the tail back, like in the pictures in the sexing guide on this site, it might help.

-Brandon
 

Claudiusx

BD.org Sicko
Staff member
Moderator
Lighting is better on female 1. I dont see anything popping out at me as male. female two is still hard to see because of the lighting, sorry :(

-Brandon
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Members online

Still Needs Help

Latest resources

Latest posts

Latest profile posts

I miss you so much, Amaris 💔
What is a quick way to warm up a cold beardie? His heating element went out overnight and now he's very cold.
Pearl Girl wrote on moorelori1966's profile.
i feel so sad reading your about me 😢
Clapton is acclimating okay I think. He's quick as lightning so I'm not sure how much I should bring him out of his house yet. He's not at all interested in his salad though. I wonder if I should change what I'm giving him. Least he's eating his crickets.

Things to do:
Buy calcium powder
Material to raise surface for basking spot
Scenery decals for back of tank

Forum statistics

Threads
155,897
Messages
1,255,669
Members
75,965
Latest member
williamyoung
Top Bottom