Ophisaurus ventralis project!

[Josh Dimpfl]

So, I'm starting to breed glass lizards, I obtained a male from Georgetown Co. SC and was gunna breed him with a female I purchased at the Columbia show from Once Bitten, who is friends with Jamie Sargent, who in turn, knows me. The female I purchased came from the Columbia, SC area and unbeknownst to me, was gravid when I bought her. My male died a week before the show, most likely from old age (he was a big boy!). So I get this female and sure enough, bam, 9-10 eggs inside her. I also have a buddy who lives down in Florida who was doing some field herping in Jasper Co. SC and found me another little eastern! I'll skip the rest of the story and get on to horrible photos.

These photos were quickly taken because these two glassies are wiggly as heck!

Adult Female, Gravid, 29 inches. Richland Co. SC. 9-10 eggs.

Juvenile Unknown Gender, 10 inches. Jasper Co. SC.

Deceased Adult Male, 35 inches. Georgetown Co. SC.

Just a video...

 

[jmlslayer]

AWESOME leggless lizards! i nrrd a pair of them!

 

[Josh Dimpfl]

The female who was gravid has laid several beautiful eggs! :main_thumbsup:

 

[Josh Dimpfl]

 

[Halley]

how much do those cost?

 

[Josh Dimpfl]

No one currently sells them, however, I am hoping I will be the first actual breeder of these guys. Life span in captivity is about 15-20 years and they eat pretty much everything Leos eat, crickets, mealworms, superworms and on occasion, pinkies. Only heat they need is a preferred heat lamp (As instead of being noctournal like leos, they are diurnal but do not require UVB). I may be selling them starting off as 20 for adults and 10 for babies, but we'll see what this project gets me.

 

[slytle90]

those are so cute! I remember seeing then on reptilesncritters.com a while back. They seem so fun to have. Good luck with the breeding project.

 

[T&KBrouse]

Oh those are incredible! Please keep us updated how the breeding project is going!

 

[moosassah]

We caught one of those when we were visiting my mom in Wilmington, NC a few summers ago. It was wild! As in really cool. We checked it out for a while & then released it in her yard again. We don't have them in MA. It had a lot more blue/turquoise as I recall.

Good luck with your venture!

 

[Josh Dimpfl]

Just a little update. I tried to let the female incubate the eggs herself, however, due to the exterior conditions of the cage, humidity was a pain to try and keep up, the eggs soon started to shrivel. I had to act fast and got them into then incubator, three days after, they all filled in nicely and I expect little ones by mid-August or early September, we'll have to see. I am still really unsure if it's possible to sex these guys once hatched, and I know their difficult to sex visually until they get larger, as juveniles attain the same color as females, males have the green/blue speckling. I'll be keeping everyone up to dat with whats going on. The temps I am incubating these guys at are around 80-81ºF. While I thought she had 9 eggs, I miscounted, she in fact, laid 6. either way, they look great.

 

[Euphoric]

Awesome! There is a store in AZ selling them.
They are really cool
Good job!

 

[Josh Dimpfl]

Most of the glass lizards you see in pet stores are either European Glass Lizards (Ophisaurus apodus) or wildcaught North American Ophisaurids. And I feel that the wildcaught adults are so skittish that when the owner tries to handle them, the drop their tails. Thankfully my big female hasn't dropped hers and I'll be trying to work with the babies after hatching to become more tameable, which isn't hard to do with young glass lizards. I'll probably just work with O.ventralis for right now, see if i can get anything neat with them and then maybe work more with other Ophisaurids. And! Like Leo's, they eat crickets, feeding babies are going to be a pain, I think I'm going to have to try pinheads, small mealworms or flightless fruitflies. When they get older, like the big male that passed away I had, they can eat pinkies, but they can not for a few years and they'll be too small.

 

[leonut]

20 what? dollars? they are sooooooooo aaaaaaawwwwwwweeeeesssooooooommmmmmmeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Josh Dimpfl]

Update: After 38 days in the incubator, at 81-83ºF, I received this as a present at 8:00pm

Since I am a pioneer at the captive breeding of ventralis, none of these guys are going to be sold. I am, however, going to be posting photos of these guys as they get bigger. Before I release my documentation on O.ventralis, I don't want to share too much more details. Not until next year some time.

 

[Crazygecko]

Congrats. Those really are to cute. now can i get one in raptor? lol jk

 

[Josh Dimpfl]

Funny thing is, these guys have never been bred to make any morphs, there was one albino found, 30 years ago.

 

[Jessica Hettinger]

How is you breeding project going? Have you been successful? I was wanting to breed O. Ventralis and recently aquired an ALBINO one so now I definitely want to breed it. What can you tell me about how to sex them so I can know if this is a boy or girl and how do you successfully breed them?