Beardies head turning black

[mastermoche]

Hello all,
This is my first time owning a beardie and I'm quite confused with some of his behavior. I have had him since October and he is probably about 6 months old by now. He has a 20 gallon starter tank (I'm working on getting a 55 at the moment) with a water bowl, basking log, hammock and everything. I feed him salads every morning along with crickets in the morning and evening. Hot side of the tank is anywhere between 95-100 degrees cold side around 80. The problem is he keeps getting black on his head they are kind of like dots, but they come and go. Sometimes the top of his head is VERY black, and others he's completely normal. I would attach a picture but I am new to the forum and cannot figure out how to do that. I am hoping I can figure this out because I have tried almost everything and the black on his head will not dissapear!

 

[AHBD]

Hi there....to get pics on here , first upload them to a site like Photobucket, then copy/paste the img here.

 

[mastermoche]

it's a horrible picture, but here it is.

 

[AHBD]

In that pic his head looks perfectly normal.

 

[mastermoche]

Sometimes he gets very very dark on the top and sometimes he's his normal bright color. When I took the picture he had a small amount of black. Trying to get a picture when/if it gets that dark again.

 

[mastermoche]

 

[AHBD]

He still looks totally fine....if there is any variation there, it's very slight. Some color change is normal according to their mood or reaction to temps. as well. He looks perfectly normal and handsome.

 

[plantkisser]

Hey! It's pretty normal for beardies to change color with mood, temperature, or sunlight. Especially to get darker marks on the head like that. Here's some examples of one of my dudes:

Same guy, totally different colors. You have nothing to worry about

 

[Taterbug]

Dragons have special cells in their skin called melanophores - they have the ability to control how much dark pigment (melanin) is shown at a time. This allows the dragon to do things like regulate temperature/uvb, express mood and make the famous black beards

This is probably what you are seeing on your guy, and is what others are describing. If you look really close they can look like tiny black spots, and are much more noticiable as they expand.

These pictures are from anzebrafish but show how much the pigment cells can change.