Eastern Water Dragon Gender

[micbec]

Hi!

Im hoping someone can help me find out the sex of this EWD that has taken up residence my backyard.

Its been here for about 3mths now and has made itself quite comfortable. So we would like to know the sex so we can name it Iv done heaps of research to try and determine the sex but iv found a few conflicting ideas...

It is approx 20/25cm from nose to base of the tail and approx 50/60cm from nose to tip of tail. And is quite thin. The head is pretty small so i thought it was a female, but it also has a red chest/belly.

These are all the photos iv taken of it so far...i hope someone can give me an idea!

 

[Justdragons]

Id say male.. cause of the dark black stripe and markings.. I could be wrong..

 

[karasha]

Def male!

 

[micbec]

How big do males get? If this is a male, how much bigger would he get?

 

[Ambush]

Nice Nieghbour

 

[Shotta]

That is a wonderful looking ewd

 

[user 16324]

they can grow to about 1 meter. Keeping in mind that their tail is 2/3 their body length. As for the gender, Males you usually have a pretty profound red chest. It looks like there is a bit of red on the chest but it is hard to tell from these photos. And generally males have quite a 'bulky' head and throat. If that makes sense. And Females are quite slender like this one so it is a bit tougher. But from the look of the developed 'mohawk' i'd say male.

 

[Bushman]

It looks like a young adult male to me.
What part of the country are you in?

 

[micbec]

Thanks for the replies! How long does it take the males to grow to full size?
I originally thought this one was female because of its slender body and smallish head...but it does have quite alot of red on the chest and the 'mohawk'...

 

[Justdragons]

Great looking lizards i rekon.. i love to watch my two. its just sad that within seconds of me cleaning the tank the terrible 2 destroy it before my eyes lol.

 

[micbec]

Im in Brisbane

 

[user 16324]

Males can take quite a short or quite a long time to fully grow. Due to factors such as food availability, habitat and dominance ie. is there a dominating male around because if so you will find the dominating male will grow much quicker than the other one.

 

[micbec]

As far as i know this is the only one here....We live in the suburbs so im guessing its come up from the creek about 200metres down the road (a busy road too!)

Would it be bad if i left food out for it occasionally? Like a few grapes/pieces of apple etc? Iv already left a tray of water up on our aviary for it since thats where it suns itself in the mornings.

 

[user 16324]

should be ok. just once a week or so. Wouldnt do it every day though. Things like watermelon, grapes(seedless), stawberries and apple they love

 

[Bushman]

I thought it looked like one from northern climes.
I'm sure that it would love some food that you happened to leave out. They tame up quite readily, especially when they get freebies.

 

[mad_at_arms]

That's cool OP.
Do you have a pond or water source in your yard or nearby?

 

[Scalez108]

is it just me or does the ewd in the last pic look like a different ewd in the other pics-looks older. lovely lizard/s -if there are two i would think they're both males.

 

[micbec]

That's cool OP.
Do you have a pond or water source in your yard or nearby?

We dont have a pond in our yard so iv put a large tray of water on top of our aviary for it, iv seen it drinking from it a few times now

is it just me or does the ewd in the last pic look like a different ewd in the other pics-looks older. lovely lizard/s -if there are two i would think they're both males.

I thought the same...but i think its the same lizard. Well iv only seen one.... If there were 2, i think one must have left.