New leo baby

[Dragonrain]

Lol...I wouldn't call them "shmann geckos" per say. It's not like they have any body parts they aren't suppose to or anything like that.

There is some controversy about all that "hot female" "cold male" stuff. Old studies done in like the 80's I think said that hot females where more aggressive than normal females and sterile. But further studies done more recently (1993 I believe) pretty much contradicted the earlier studies and showed that hot females (females incubated at high temperatures throughout the whole incubation period) mature at a slower rate than normal, but they do eventually become fertile and can breed normally. Later studies also didn't find that the so called hot females where significantly more aggressive as a whole than your average leo.

Oveously something is going on there that it makes the "hot females" reach sexually maturity later than what's normal, but after they do hit sexual maturity a lot of them will calm down and act more like your typical female leo.

[Jess]

Shmann is close enough, LOL!
I read that the "hot" females were infertile and always layed dud eggs, but I guess you would know more about it than I would.

[Dragonrain]

I'm sure there are some of them that lay dud eggs. But then again, there are also perfectly normal/healthy females who also lay dud eggs. The latest research suggests that not all hot females are infertile though. Many of them do eventually become sexually mature and are able to produce normal eggs.

I think the problem was that the original study on hot females didn't last very long. So the researchers assumed that the females where infertile when they didn't become sexually mature at the normal age and that became the common belief. However, future studies monitored the females for a longer time period and discovered that they did eventually mature and where able to lay normal fertile eggs, it just took them longer than normal to mature. Basically, because they seem to mature later than normal, the original researchers didn't monitor them long enough for them to become mature and able to prove that they weren't sterile.

The aggression thing some people think is a myth as well. Not everyone...but a lot of people think it just has to do with the individual temperaments of each reptile. Some of them are more aggressive than others, irregardless to whether their eggs where incubated too hot or not. It's very easy for someone to get an aggressive gecko and based on that just assume that she's a hot female, even though she may have been incubated at normal temperatures. Some of them just seem to have more of an attitude than others.

Some people say that certain morphs or colors are more aggressive than others too. I had someone tell me that my Miyuki would be nasty based on her morph...but I haven't so far found that to be the case at all. She's actually been very easy going as far as baby leopard geckos go.

I think this stuff is really interesting. If anyone is interested in looking at the studies I mentioned, I'm sure I can find them. I believe they are PDF files though which are a pain to open, for me at least, but I can try to post them.

[Jess]

Hmm, I didn't know that morph could possibly determine their personality? That's weird, because as far as beardies go, all morph have the same friendly-ness.


Any new pictures of your little one??

[MeteoraAngel]

Quote: Originally Posted by Dragonrain They aren't normally that color as hatchlings but she is because of her morph. Normally they are yellow with bands unless they are a special morph. Nope I'm not 100% sure she's really a girl but her egg was incubated at female temps. A lot of the time you can determine leopard gecko sex by the temperature you use to incubate the eggs at. At lower temps, most of the babies will be female. At higher temps, you get mostly males. Until she proves me otherwise, I'm going to keep calling her a girl haha.

thats pretty cool i knew you could do that with larger reptiles didnt know it worked the same with smaller ones like geckos =o

[MeteoraAngel]

Id love to read the studies =D

[Dragonrain]

Quote: Hmm, I didn't know that morph could possibly determine their personality? That's weird, because as far as beardies go, all morph have the same friendly-ness.

Well I was trying to say...that's what some people say, but I don't know if I believe it. I certainly haven't experienced it myself.

If it does happen, I personally believe that it probably has less to do with the morph and more to do with the breeding lines/genetics being used. Since most reptile breeders, at least not leopard gecko breeders, aren't breeding animals based on their temperaments, maybe they are accidentally breeding animals that are more genetically prone to aggressiveness. Over time I would think that could give the appearance of a certain morph being generally more aggressive than another, when in reality the behavior isn't necessarily a linked trait of that morph but instead a gene passed on from the particular geckos who where originally used to produce that line. Just a theory.

I'll dig the studies on the hot females up later on tonight or tomorrow morning...it will take me a bit of searching to find them again and I don't have a ton of time right now.

I'll get new pictures of Miyuki soon too! She's doing well...she's 10 days old today

[Jess]

Yeah, that sounds more likely.


Can't wait for more pics!

[MeteoraAngel]

I dont know much about morphs yet, i know albi is a murphys patternless which i had to look up to find that out lol the pet store was just like yeah hes albino =/ hes a sweet little guy he lets me pick him up and never makes any noise which is odd cuz he was only a few weeks old from his size.
some people jsut dont care about breeding deep down =/ i used to breed hamsters (for my friends as gifts) and i picked the sweetest best tempered hamsters i could find becasue i knew if mama had a bad temper the babes could possible as well. shiro was the laziest sweetest thing ever he woudl crawl onto your shoulder and fall asleep and sakura would roll onto her back and let you scratch her sides (she loved it when she was pregenet if you were real gentle) never had a single mean baby either, once they were big enough mama would get to play in her ball for 20 minutes and id handle them to let them get used to people. i dont plan on breeding ickis but i would imagine handling would help a bit with gecko babies as it did with the hamsters. i could be wrong though its just a thought thats why id like to read about it =D

[Dragonrain]

Dr. David Crews published a paper in 1988 and said that hot females where infertile and more aggressive than normal. I unfortunately can't find a link to his actual study.

Dr. Brian Viets did a study in 1993 and then Dr. Tousignant did one in 1995 and both of their studies contradicted a lot of Crews original findings.

This is the 1993 Viets study, which Crews actually also worked on I believe (It's a PDF file just to warn you, my computer has a horrible time opening PDF's)...

http://www.glasgowgecko.co.uk/Articles/viets.pdf

Viets concludes in that study that "hot females" can in fact produce fertile eggs, eggs in turn which go on to hatch normal and also fertile offspring. Viets mentions I believe 2 or 3 other studies in his paper that also support the fact that hot females are not infertile.

I can't find the 1995 article right now either....and I'm sure there are more studies that I don't even know about.

Basically "hot females" do exist to the point where they seem to be hormonally different than normal females during early development. However the fact that they are always infertile and always aggressive is a myth. Also, after speaking to a lot of breeders and reading other studies, it seems like most hot females start to calm down and act more like normal females once they reach sexual maturity.

[Dragonrain]

MeteoraAngel -

Yeah, with a lot of types of reptiles it seems like a majority of breeders mostly care about colors and stuff like that, and don't really consider as much the animals temperaments.

I guess it's probably because most types of reptiles are more of a hands off type of pet.

[MeteoraAngel]

Spiffy ill check that one out and look around for others sometime =o
If i ever did decide ot breed any reptiles i wouldnt do it if the reptiles were ill tempered =( my friend has a columbian rainbow boa and shes amazingly calm and sweet but the snake he wanted to breed her with is a evil little bastard that bites everyone so i talked him out of it. I realize alot of reptiles are hands off pets but that doesnt stop people from trying to handle them and then they wonder why their pets are so crabby lol

[Dragonrain]

Miyuki is almost a month and a half old now. She's gone from her hatch weight of 4 grams to 14 grams as of last Sunday, probably more now. I weigh her each sunday and she's been gaining an average of 3 or 4 grams a week.

She's doing really well. She's very sweet and doesn't mind at all when I handle her. Over time she is loosing the pink coloration and turning more and more white. When she's fully grown she should be pure white.

Next week I'm going to be buying her her own 20 gal acrylic tank to move her into. She's still in her "baby tank" - a 10 gal that I have set up for hatchlings. I have 3 more eggs in the incubator right now, 2 of the 3 I know are fertile. So with any luck, not soon after Miyuki moves into her new tank the baby tank will have some new occupants.

[Jess]

Wow, she grew a lot! I can see the difference in color... She doesn't look like a pinky anymore!
Post pictures of her new cage when you get it!

[Sasami]

Wow, she's gotten so big! She's so pretty and healthy .