Arm Waving When Eating?

[TheKotah]

So, my fiancé on impulse bought a bitty seven inch long beardie. We originally had a 55 planned for getting an older dragon, but so it goes. He is the herp lover, so what I hadn't expected was how much I'd adore such a tiny puffy condecending little thing. It's active, attentive, basks and eats like a champ. I was a baddie and offered it some shredded greens by hand on the third day, and it took them right from my fingertips. I'm just so curious about the arm waving.

Every time we offer crickets, our guy pauses on the hunting for a moment to arm wave, even if we are sometimes out of sight. Sometimes when watching us, he will randomly arm wave. I know that with other reptiles, this is can be a sign of submission or agression if accompanied by a headbob. Could we be stressing him? Or is he just doing the dance of his people? He's only blackened when I tried to move him to take a first time measurement of his length.

One other question, though i think it should probably go into feeding. The people at the store were giving them mealworms for some reason..... I've been trying to get ours to take to small phoenix worms. He went crazy in his tank when he saw the small superworms we had out for our water dragons, but everytime I give him the phoenix worms, his reaction is best described as "meh." Is there any way to help him adjust? Or will that just happen as he gets used to them.

 

[onceblue]

My beardie is pretty meh about phoenix worms. He eats them, but he's not that crazy about them. Like people, beardies have their own tastes and favorite foods.

What size are you feeding? I fed the small ones at first but I think they were too small for my beardie to be all that interested in them. Even the large size worms are pretty small so if you are feeding the small ones you can try to go with a bigger size. There is less impaction risk with soft bodied feeders than hard bodied feeders.

What also helped me get my beardie more interested in them was to wet them, because they move around more when wet and their movement can get the beardie's hunting instincts going.

As for arm waving, my understanding is that it's a beardie's way of communicating that they aren't a threat (an I-won't-mess-with-you-so-don't-get-aggressive type motion), although animal communication and behavior is usually a little more complex than the way humans interpret. Some beardies wave a lot when young, and some don't (for instance I've never seen mine wave but I've heard of other young beardies waving at furniture and even crickets). I don't think it's anything to be concerned about, even if he is a little stressed by you (which is probable, young beardies are very concerned about predators - their stress about them is what keeps them alive in the wild). He'll get used to you in time as you work with him and handle him.

It's great that he's so active and eating so well!

 

[kingofnobbys]

arm waving is a signal that they are being submissive ... to the other lizard , or person .

If your tank is glass, he can probably see his own reflection and will think it's another beardie, so he's arm waving essentially at himself, they also head nod at their own reflection too.

If he was stressed by you watching he wouldn't be eating the crickets, he may be "thanking you" .,,.. I found our beardies and bluetongues did something similar as juveniles when we first started letting them roam on the floor, they'd stop, look at us straight in the eyes and either armwave and or give a couple of headnods as if asking " is it OK to go here/there ?"

dambed pet shops .... should know better , but mealworms are dirt cheap and lots cheaper than crickets or woodies or silkworms or gents. if you get some medium sized silkworms he'll go crazy over them and they are about as good a hatchie live food as you can find. He's probably too little to get even small superworms . Calci-gents might be attractive to him.

 

[kingofnobbys]

they are great fun and very funny when little.