science fair project

[Bruiser]

I am a science teacher at an elementary school and I have several students who have Beardies as pets and they would like to do some kind of experiment with them for their yearly science project. We are an A++ school in Arizona and the recent winner of the Intel Award for science in the nation. The age of the dragons range from infant, adolescent and adult. I myself have 2 adult dragons to use as a control. I need help in trying to plan some experiments. For example: do dragons see color, can they be trained in a certain way, do dragons have a certain food they all like or are they individual, etc. Any help would be appreciated and any suggestions would help as long as no harm comes to any dragon. Anyone have suggestions?
My email at school is [email protected]. or my personal email at home is [email protected]. Hope someone can help.

 

[Jess]

Beardies can indeed see colors. I know that quite a few of them have "favorite" colors. Dudley's favorite color is red... He obviously prefers eating red things compared to any other color, and he will eat anything that is red, no matter what it is LOL (Included red painted finger nails!) Maybe you could line up different colored foods, and see which one is the most preferred? Most beardies are attracted to bright colors.

They all seem to have different favorite foods too. Dudley loves anything sweet- His favorites are watermelon, raspberries, and blueberries.
My first beardie, Wink, used to LOVE basil and he liked dandelion flowers too. Dudley hates basil, and it he gets a dandelion flower in his mouth, he freaks out and starts spitting it out frantically LOL.
You could feed all of the beardies a certain food, and see what their reactions are.

Not sure if they would have the attention span for training though. :wink:

 

[Bruiser]

Thanks for the info! My dragons also like anything red! Especially raspberries! My turtle also likes anything red too! A box turtle that loves red cabbage! and red lettuce but hates red fruit, like raspberries and strawberries go figure! Do you think this is a reptile thing?

 

[ziggy23]

I am a science teacher at an elementary school and I have several students who have Beardies as pets and they would like to do some kind of experiment with them for their yearly science project. We are an A++ school in Arizona and the recent winner of the Intel Award for science in the nation. The age of the dragons range from infant, adolescent and adult. I myself have 2 adult dragons to use as a control. I need help in trying to plan some experiments. For example: do dragons see color, can they be trained in a certain way, do dragons have a certain food they all like or are they individual, etc. Any help would be appreciated and any suggestions would help as long as no harm comes to any dragon. Anyone have suggestions?
My email at school is [email protected]. or my personal email at home is [email protected]. Hope someone can help.

They do seem to see colors. Many dragons have their favorites, and will try to eat or taste anything of that color. One of my dragons is fond of green and will often bite at green ads on her newspaper.

Most animals can be trained, but it's not like with dogs, it's more like conditioning for most. I used to volunteer at the zoo and even some of the sharks were trained, and they are not very intelligent at all. But with dragons many people have potty trained dragons who always go in the same spot.

many dragons seem to really enjoy squash, but there are individual tastes. For example many people say their dragons love apples, while mine won't go anywhere near them.

One interesting question would be that I personally would like verified for sure is if their vision is based on movement or if they just really like the thrill of the hunt. it seems to be really common for dragons to ignore the bug right in front of them to get the one running further away.

 

[Jess]

Thanks for the info! My dragons also like anything red! Especially raspberries! My turtle also likes anything red too! A box turtle that loves red cabbage! and red lettuce but hates red fruit, like raspberries and strawberries go figure! Do you think this is a reptile thing?

I think a lot of reptile just like red, LOL... At the reptile shop I adopted Dudley from, they have some large tortoised that they let roam around the store during the summer. They kept following me and my mom around, and tried to eat our toes when ever we stood still because of our nail polish. The store owner warned us about this when we came in!

@Ziggy: Dudley hates apples too! Wink used to love them.

 

[BeardieGrandma]

Since you have two adult dragons and the students have dragons of all ages, maybe an experiment in potty training the dragons would be interesting - do they learn better at a younger age or does age matter at all? Is it a learned behavior or some type of conditioning?

Potty training seems to take many forms - some people put down paper towel in their viv and the dragon poos on it, same spot everyday. There's another story where the dragon kept pooping in the food bowl, everyday. Some claim that their dragons won't poop in their viv because they prefer not to, and 'wait' until their owners take them out, give them a bath, etc. My niece had a uromastyx and told me he refused to poo in his cage and would scratch at the side of the tank until they took him out. He would run around in a circle and then promptly poop. Might be something to think about and poop is always an interesting topic LOL

 

[Rukia1988]

My bearded dragon hates pooping in her viv! She will glass dance and stare at my until I take her out and she will either poop right on the counter when I am filling her bath or right when I get it nice and toasty for her.

I also know my bearded dragons see color. They dislike it when I wear blues. Pip would show stress marks when I wore my big blue hood or any blue shirts, those were my college colors lol and they gave away lots of free blue shirts. I had her in my dorm room my last semester.

I am also in the education field and I was going to do something similar with my classroom but I was going to try to have my dragons lay a clutch of eggs. And then have my students and I incubate them and wait for them to grow. But that requires having babies and finding homes for them so I was reluctant to pursue this idea.

 

[Bruiser]

I love the suggestions so far. Potty is interesting but are we training them or us? Great suggestion! Color is very interesting. Something I would like to pursue. Breeding is not an option as I already know how expensive and time consuming it would be as this board has told me. Anyone considering this should talk to this board to see what you are in for as far as expense and time! They are a GREAT resource!
Thanks and keep your suggestions coming!

 

[Jess]

I know this probably isn't an experiment you could do right now due to the time it would take, but I would be interested in knowing what effects a beardie's weight has on when it brumates. I was talking to some other members about this in another thread, and it seems that brumation is triggered more by weight than by age- A lot of the younger dragons who turn out to be beasts will brumate before they are a year old. And this makes sense, because their body would know when they have enough fat stores to be able to safely go months with out eating. So in what range exactly would this "trigger" weight be? It seem to me that most young beardies who start brumation early weigh 500g +, while beardies of the same age who are smaller dont brumate until the next year.

If anyone actually had the time and patience to try an experiment like this next fall/winter, I think it would be really interesting.

 

[Bruiser]

I like that thought!
Can you send me more info on this subject?
Or links or anything? I really like this one!

 

[Bruiser]

GREAT!
I am going to post that right now!

 

[Jess]

I don't have a lot of info on it, as I heard it from some one else. There's a little discussion on it on page 2 of this thread though: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=136564&start=15
The member who brought it up is Crickest, so maybe you could PM them about it.

 

[Rukia1988]

I know this probably isn't an experiment you could do right now due to the time it would take, but I would be interested in knowing what effects a beardie's weight has on when it brumates. I was talking to some other members about this in another thread, and it seems that brumation is triggered more by weight than by age- A lot of the younger dragons who turn out to be beasts will brumate before they are a year old. And this makes sense, because their body would know when they have enough fat stores to be able to safely go months with out eating. So in what range exactly would this "trigger" weight be? It seem to me that most young beardies who start brumation early weigh 500g +, while beardies of the same age who are smaller dont brumate until the next year.

If anyone actually had the time and patience to try an experiment like this next fall/winter, I think it would be really interesting.

That's unusual thought because my dragons were about 300 g and they started to brumate. zippy was 6 months old when he started to brumate....he is a beast though 19 inches at 5 months old.