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Joined: Mar 25, 2005 Posts: 1354 Location: Denver, CO
Posted: Sat Aug 06, 2005 12:07 am Post subject: Swapping Enclosures ?
As we have all moved up to bigger enclosures for our Tegu's, my question is will swapping enclosures cause any stress ? - My enclosure "still in progress" that my Argentine hatchling is in, is 5 foot long by 3 foot wide - I have it partitioned off so not the large area to stress the baby, however the 3 feet still available is ready for use and I can easily extend another 3 feet to this enclosure.
I would like to transfer my Colombian "Now about 2 feet" to this enclosure and transfer my Argentine hatchling to the 90 gallon tank which is 4 feet by 1.5 feet, while I start building another enclosure.
My question is, can the Tegu's sense that another has been in it's "new enclosure", and will this cause un-needed stress ? _________________ 1.0.0 Ball Python "Albino"
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I don't think any research has been actually done in this field. However, it is known that one of the key manners that tegus sense their environment is through chemosensory senses. In us, that is our sense of smell, but in the tegus, it's their tongue flicking. They use their tongue to pick up chemical cues from their environment which are then transferred to the vomeronasal organ (or Jacobson's organ) on the roof of their mouth. If you move your tegus, keep an eye on their tongue flicking; if their frequency of tongue flicking increases and stays increased for a significant period of time, it would be a pretty good indication they can indeed detect the previous occupant by "smell".
Joined: Mar 25, 2005 Posts: 1354 Location: Denver, CO
Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2005 6:26 pm Post subject:
I've swapped enclosures today - Other than having more space to investigate with their tounges, nothing out of the ordinary. They both basically were curious as to their new home, checked it out, hit the basking logs, ate a little and buried. _________________ 1.0.0 Ball Python "Albino"
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