Hello! My boyfriend recently bought a beardie from a pet store and he’s been doing fairly well until about an hour ago. We got him a net and a better hide since he liked real rocks and wood more than the plastic stuff and decided to rearrange his tank to switch out the plastic hut for the half wood log and just hung a little net near his favorite piece of cork wood. Usually he’s not this stressed out by us rearranging things or putting our hands in the tank but tonight he actually turned VERY dark underneath so we came to this site to research into why that might be. Everything we’ve read about them turning black all over or turning totally black in a specific spot but none of the articles, photos, or forum posts or comments have shown the leopard spots or given us an explanation for why his underside looks like it has black leopard spots and tiger stripes. He eats very well, is pretty active, hunts for his food very well, and has never gotten spots this dark before or has had them for this long. Any suggestions as to why this might be happening would be greatly appreciated!
Below are two photos of how the spots and stripes look. They’re more prominent in the first photo but in the second photo you can actually see that it’s his entire underside. Thanks again for any help !
Some call these stress marks , but they are just normal patterning and can indicate stress, but more othen than not indicate alertness.
Careful , those mesh hammocks like the one I see are dangerous to bearded dragons, who regularly get their curly nails snagged and injure their arms or legs or shoulders or hips severely while trying to get away from the mesh that's "grabbed them".
where is the reddish glow coming from ?
if you have a red coloured IR globe, this needs to be returned and exchanged for a clear colourless flood style basking globe .
The red glow makes it very hard for a dragon to identify food items because it will change their colour.
Yes please get rid of the colored bulb-- it can cause damage to their eyes as well and it disturbs their sleep-- if its being used for heat please get a CHE --- they only produce heat and no light - comes in 75 and 100 watt bulbs
Karrie