My Beautiful Argentine Tegu

So this is my tegu Dezie. He has his "moody" days but he is overall a suck. He is on the larger size for his age, he is 45" and turned 12 months old on May 25. I got him in July 2010 and he was 10" in length. Even so he is very shy! He will hide his head in my arm pit when strangers are around, he love the material of my arm housecoat and 9/10 times he will fall asleep on my lap while I am wearing it. He has gotten to the point where he is not a huge fan of being "handled" but he is large and awkward and he is much more comfortable with his feet planted on ground.

Here is my boy the day I brought him home( I waited 7 months for him to be "in season")

he's a lovely looking boy did it take you long to harness train him?

I love tegus... I'm on a forum for them and they're on my "Creatures to own in my lifetime" list. Very nice tegu

Thanks
As for the harness, he has days where he will huff and puff when I try to put it on and other days he is fine. It may take a few tried to get it on as I don't force him I generally just get him to walk into in.
What forum do you visit? I am active on one of them.

He is pretty nice. I am not too much into the bigger lizards. About the biggest I have found that I like so far is the BTS's. But, I can admire them from afar, just don't wanna own one. He is nice looking and I think it's cute you can take him on a "walk".

i love the bigger stuff! i have never had a tegu, but i have had ALOT monitors, waters, croc, niles, green trees, red ackies, yellow ackies, spiney tailed, mertens, bengals, savanahs, kimberly rocks....i want to get a black throat next. but it may be a while as i have more leopards to buy to get the ingredients for what all i want to make still.

he almost looks like that red white and blue line of argentines that bobby hill produces. The other place is called tegu talk. My handle there is Dog Shrink.

Oh okay. I generally visit thetegu forum for tegu info, but both are good.

I don't frequent it too much any more since we've decided to hold off on investing in a tegu, but I have noticed it is a bit of a slow board. I pretty much went because it had a lot of good starter info (their site always came up when I'd google a question on tegus) and the people seemed pretty nice and helpful.

Is your tegu a Bobby Hill tegu?

I was unable to get a tegu from the states due to customs over the boarder. I tried and even talked to Bobby hill on the phone to see if we could "get" one of his over here but I wasn't willing to risk it. My tegu is likely a farmed tegu that has been imported.

Still a very nice tegu... darn import laws

wow he's cute and MASSIVE!!

I'm more of a smaller lizard person atm.. maybe i will change my mind with more reptile experience

I think it's pretty awesome that you can walk him on a lead. When my dad went on holiday to Corfu.. he saw people walking Iguana's on leads on the beach

He's a nice looking big boy

Wish i still had mine but it hated Sam so he had to go

Vanessa the laws actually aren't as bad to bring into Canada. At the end of the month I am getting 4 pink tongue skinks from over the border. As long as the are not CITES it is actually quite easy as long as you go over and pick them up. I am getting mine shipped to Watertown via Purolator or whatever company. I will pick them up at an office there. Then I have an inspection appointment with the USFWS and all they do is check to make sure that I am taking over what I say that I am and that is about it. There is an 85.00 inspection fee though.

Yeah I tried to find a way to do it. Tegus are on the Cites list as a class 2 I believe. The problem was not Canada but the states. I talked to the officials about crossing the boarder and I was told I would need to apply for a CITES and it would be about $1400 and 6 months to a year to get... Either way I am happy with the one I got. He can have some attitude some days but so do my kids! I was told that if I get an import then they will be nasty and I really need to get a "selectively" bed tegu. But there are days that this massive beast wants to sit on my head or curl up inside my sweater to go for a nap....Sorry excuse for a lizard if you ask me but I think it is awesome! I think it all comes down to the interaction. I have spent hours a day with him when he was young.

That is really cool Vanessa. I never realized they were on the CITES. It is not too bad if they are not CITES. and NON-venemous and all of that...lol. I had my turn speaking with them as well....lol. I got talked into babysitting , I think it's an Argus monitor? My other friend thinks it's a black throat...lol. Not sure. He is posted in the other lizard section. His name is Oden. He is not full grown yet I know that. He is currently housed in my 175g tank that I bought for my skinks but had to get the guy to hold them for me since Oden is too big for anything else I have.

i just checked, and the friend that said blackthroat is 100% correct!!! that is a blackthroat for sure, an argus is a more slender built monitor with a longer snout and the nostrils are out farther on the head...not to mention that the argus monitor is an australian monitor and black throats are africans. the argus is also sometimes called the sand monitor. hey ya know what...google the argus and look at a pic and you will see the HUGE difference of the two species

I will do that Rick

Yep, guess that was all I had to do because there is no denying the difference!