Well i put this in the bearded dragon forums cause this lizard is considered a dragon. Well i thought i had my mind made up for sure that i wanted a monitor, but now i discovered another lizard that is awesome. It's called a Sailfin Dragon, or Hydrosaurus. They get around 4ft long and are pretty bulky. But they have good temperaments especially when they are older. They have a diet like the bearded dragon, omnivorous. More protein when little etc. Once i get the room to build a big enclosure i'm definitely gonna look into buying one of these beasts.
Yeah the guy on sailfindragon.com has been keeping them for a while and breeds and sells them. You can find research on just about any animal on the internet. What can be trusted is a different debate but, if you find out the environment they live in wild then you can pretty much get a good grip of what to do.
They do look amazing, I have seen them before but have never found any decent info on them. I would talk to the guy who breeds them (as he must know his stuff if he breeds them succesfully) and get a good knowledge of them before hand. Would love to see pics when you get it
Yes I have heard of them! They sound like awesome pets. That is about as dinosaur-like as a reptile can get!! Man, if I had the room.... Good luck! Keep us posted! (If you end up building an enclosure, I'd love to see!)
you should probably do some reading on these http://www.honoluluzoo.org/sailfin_lizard.htm http://www.anapsid.org/sailfin.html http://www.arkive.org/sail-fin-lizard/hydr...latus/info.html this is a lizard for someone very experienced, theyre species is threatened due to being hunted and also because their territories are being cut down. they have needs very close to that of an iguana yet they are omnivourous as well and not as tame as an iguana and from what i saw i think the average price for one of these is 1000$ american. but it is mentioned that they are more docile then monitors. and if you are deadset on getting one then by all means get one. but it wont be as easy to take care of as you might think
Now dont get me wrong.. i LOVE any animal.. but this particular one I think IMO is scary looking... If its anything like an iguana... oh boy.. a friend of mine has 3 iguanas and all of them of nasty
No these aren't like Iguanas. I don't know what it is with people thinking Iguanas are docile, because they are definitely not, maybe if you get lucky. This is a dragon species, which tend to be more tame. And this guy BREEDS them and says that they have good temperaments especially as adults. They are from the phillipines and indonesia, the phillipino ones are the 1,000 species. These are no harder to take care of then a regular monitor(non dwarf). I've read on them and am real confident i can take care of one of these. As a matter of fact the only thing i am worried about is building the cage, let alone raising this lizard. And scary stacesam? look at that adorable face on the bottom pic
they are ALOT like iguanas, they require nail trimming and they live mostly in trees like iguanas and when threatened by a predator they jump into water like iguanas . and i never said iguanas were real tame but alot ive read says they are even harder to tame then iguanas. and to be honest i wouldnt doubt if that guys inventory was mostly composed of sailfins caught from the wild
They only live in the same type of environment, that has no connection with behaviors. It's a totally different species. This guy breeds them himself and sells his hatchlings, so they are captive not wild caught. And he has alot of experience, obviously if he can breed them, and says they have a good temperament so i take his word. Even if they aren't, i don't care about a cuddle factor, they look badass.
I read about many people that buy Pitbulls because they look "badass" and then the dog ends up at a rescue and eventually euthanized because it hurts someone. "cudle factor" or not, you want to be able to handle this animal. I did go on this guys site and he seems to know what he is talking about, however I have gone on other sites about this type and it backs up what Beefcake said. IMO I would do as much research on it as you can before spending that kind of money on somthing that can potentially be a problem down the line. I do have to admit.. the babies on that guys site are awfully cute.
well yea don't get me wrong of course i'm gonna do research. But as i was gonna get a monitor which are known to be more for show. It really doesn't matter to me if i can hold it or not. That's not gonna make me dump it.
thats great that you are willing to do extensive research on these animals. They are so costly.. it would be worth it to do your homework on this. Good luck!
Uh oh, I hate to go off topic, but you had to bring up pitbulls. I hope you don't think pitbulls are bad dogs, stace. I work for a vet and have met many pits that are WONDERFUL gentle dogs who wouldn't hurt a soul. If a dog ends up in a recsue or euthanized for hurting someone, it's usually because the OWNER made them into what they were through neglect, abuse, or downright stupidity. People that get dogs for the "tough dog/badass" image are the ones ruining the dogs. Don't blame the breed. Did you know that most of the Michael Vick fighting dogs that were rescued went on to be adopted as family pets? Even dogs that were trained to fight, it wasn't what they wanted and given the right environment their true nature came out. I even heard one of them is now a therapy dog. Sorry, I just have to say what I think when I see pitbulls being used as an example of an aggressive animal. There are many small breed "cute" dogs that are far more aggressive by nature than pitbulls, you just don't hear about them because they don't do as much damage and aren't labeled "fighting dogs". ANYWAYS, I think those sailfin dragons are amazing. I don't know if I'd want one for a pet, personally, just seems like a little too much for me. But if you're willing to do the research, put in the expense, and do it right, then more power to you.
Lol... I know about little man syndrome in dogs a bit too well, I have a little jack russell who is lovely to people but thinks he can take on every dog out there even if they are bull mastif, grey hound, german shepard! You name it, he'll try fight it lol. I spoke to a behaviour specialist about him and supposedly its called napoleon syndrome as napoleon was small and they think his need to compensate for this was why he was so "bad" lol. The sailfin, I think, will be a challenging pet due to not having the knowledge and experience of lots of owners to help you out (with so many people owning beardies, when a problem arises then its likely someone has encoutered it before and can help you) so your kinda on your own (excluding the breeder). All pet lizards species were at one stage less common so if people didn't go for less common species then we wouldn't have any common ones. So I'd say go for it as long as your willing to put a lot of research, time and money into it. I agree that their habitats will play a vital role in how they act however their evolutionary history will to and seems they are agamas then it would suggest maybe a more skittish but less agressive temperant. An iguane would stand and fight where as I think one of these would run, meaning if you could show you mean no harm... I think one could be tamed down quite well. Good luck and keep us posted
