Last Year In November, We Found Eastern Water Dragon Eggs Laid In One Of Our Flower Pots And We Took Good Care Of Them
We live in Sydney, Australia, and are lucky enough to be surrounded by incredible wildlife. One of the animals in our backyard is the Eastern Water Dragon. These cool lizards swim in our pool on hot days, and for the rest of the time, we see them every now and then.
In November last year we saw a female in one of our flower pots next to the pool and later spotted lizards eggs she laid there. We covered the eggs with soil and then googled everything we could about egg hatching. With the hatching time getting closer, we paid careful attention to the eggs (four of the nine eggs looked pretty okay, and five seemed to be infertile – all wrinkled up).
Once we noticed what seemed like a slice in the egg (which turns soft) we moved the eggs to a terrarium that we set up for hatchlings. All this action usually happens underground, so it was pretty special to see it all. The eggs hatched one day after another, and it was amazing to be a part of this. The plan was to set the cute reptiles free once they all hatched and to capture as much as we would about this fantastic experience. We think they are all females as it turns out they are temperature-dependent-sex types of lizards. We had a sweltering summer in Sydney. They are now all free in our backyard.
Getting ready for the big world out there
The dragon can wait like this for more than an hour
From the time that the hatching started this would be about 5 hours later
Almost out of the shell (which turns soft when it almost hatches)
We named the first one Khalesi
The second one hatched the following day
Big smile for the camera
Waiting for egg number three to hatch
And then there were three.
Finally all four beautiful eastern water dragons
They are just gorgeous and we loved being a small part of their journey
All four hatched and ready to be set free in our backyard
Minutes before they were set free
It was hard saying goodbye but they have a big playground in our backyard and we hope to see them again one day swimming in our pool (like their parents do)
Photo of daddy with his red chest
Mommy is a bit smaller than daddy
The eggs were laid in a flower pot next to our pool – because mom left them uncovered we knew where they were and covered them with sand to make sure they would hatch successfully
Matchbox to get an indication of size of new born
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Lovely experience. Thank you for sharing it with us. How large is the grown-up male dragon?
From head to tail I would guess about 60 cm
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This is wonderful, I truly enjoyed it, dragons are so cute and fun to watch , love to have them in my yard !!!
It is funny that my friends can call me dragon lady or mother of dragons and it is a huge complement
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This is so amazing!!!!!! You birthed 4 dragons!!! I like the name of the first one!!! GOT!!! I love how much reptiles resemble the baby versions of Dinos.
They are definitely like miniature dragons. I feel very lucky to have known about the location of the eggs.
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Thank you - you know me and my camera :)
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I love how all reptiles (at least that I've seen), when faced with siblings or same-species friends, will automatically crowd each other and stand as close as possible (or on top of each other)
I was deliriously excited when my leachie gecko hatched. It's amazing to watch them go from egg, to neonate, to juvenile. Thanks for sharing.
i used to have a mountain horned lizard, beautiful lizard. was fun to take care of them cause we would go in the back of the yard and collect worms to feed them. we had a male and female and tried to breed but never worked and one day the mother broke her mouth and passed, ill miss them but its good to have the memories.
They are so adorable! I hope they come visit you, please post updates!
wow, they are beautiful! what an awesome experience to get to see them hatch. hope you get more babies!
Its adorable to see them nuzzling each other! They have emotions and feelings, so glad they had good people watching over them.
Not wanting to be a Debbie Downer but how safe is it to kiss one of these? My wife will happily kiss our cats, even when they're all mucky from being outside, but I'm more finicky…what kind of interesting things could one catch theoretically speaking?
Reptiles are generally pretty clean unless they've been introduced to something gross, and they can't get a lot of diseases that can effect humans. The only thing I would really worry about is if the thing was frightened and responded by biting, or if they had mites. But even the types of mites that infect reptiles are easy to get rid of in humans, and these dragons are so young it would be really surprising if they already had mites.
Load More Replies... I am hoping they will be on top of the food chain!
Load More Replies... Lovely experience. Thank you for sharing it with us. How large is the grown-up male dragon?
From head to tail I would guess about 60 cm
Load More Replies... This is wonderful, I truly enjoyed it, dragons are so cute and fun to watch , love to have them in my yard !!!
It is funny that my friends can call me dragon lady or mother of dragons and it is a huge complement
Load More Replies... This is so amazing!!!!!! You birthed 4 dragons!!! I like the name of the first one!!! GOT!!! I love how much reptiles resemble the baby versions of Dinos.
They are definitely like miniature dragons. I feel very lucky to have known about the location of the eggs.
Load More Replies... Thank you - you know me and my camera :)
Load More Replies... I love how all reptiles (at least that I've seen), when faced with siblings or same-species friends, will automatically crowd each other and stand as close as possible (or on top of each other)
I was deliriously excited when my leachie gecko hatched. It's amazing to watch them go from egg, to neonate, to juvenile. Thanks for sharing.
i used to have a mountain horned lizard, beautiful lizard. was fun to take care of them cause we would go in the back of the yard and collect worms to feed them. we had a male and female and tried to breed but never worked and one day the mother broke her mouth and passed, ill miss them but its good to have the memories.
They are so adorable! I hope they come visit you, please post updates!
wow, they are beautiful! what an awesome experience to get to see them hatch. hope you get more babies!
Its adorable to see them nuzzling each other! They have emotions and feelings, so glad they had good people watching over them.
Not wanting to be a Debbie Downer but how safe is it to kiss one of these? My wife will happily kiss our cats, even when they're all mucky from being outside, but I'm more finicky…what kind of interesting things could one catch theoretically speaking?
Reptiles are generally pretty clean unless they've been introduced to something gross, and they can't get a lot of diseases that can effect humans. The only thing I would really worry about is if the thing was frightened and responded by biting, or if they had mites. But even the types of mites that infect reptiles are easy to get rid of in humans, and these dragons are so young it would be really surprising if they already had mites.
Load More Replies... I am hoping they will be on top of the food chain!
Load More Replies...
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