By Billy Brenner

Introduction:

The Frilled Dragon (Chlamydosaurus kingii) is a member of the Agamid family. It is a very hardy captive, and if given enough space and proper care, acclimates easily to life in captivity.

Housing:

One adult Frilled Dragon will be Okay in a 55 or 75 gallon aquarium, But keep in mind that Frilled Dragons are Semi-Arboreal and love to climb. The cage that I use to house my adult pair measures 4'L x 2'D x 5'H. A cage of 4'H x 2'D x 2'H would be a minimum for an adult pair of Australian Frilled's. New Guinea frilled lizards may be able to be housed in a somewhat smaller enclosure.

Fresh water should be available at all times. Provide your frilled dragon with a water dish large enough for it to comfortably fit into, and heavy enough so that he wont knock it over. Frilled Dragons often defecate in their water so you will most likely have to clean the water bowl at least once a day.

Make sure you provide branches for your frilled to climb on, and a basking spot large enough for each animal in your enclosure (Or multiple basking spots if you have enough space). The optimum daytime temperature should be in the mid to high 80's on the hot side of the enclosure and in the low to mid 70's on the cool side. All of the lights should be set on a timer to stay on for 14 hours of daylight. You should also spray them down with a fine mist about three to four times a week.

Feeding:

Frilled Dragons require a lot of food. Adults should be fed about 20-30 crickets every day depending on the size of the animal. One fuzzy or hopper a week is also not a bad idea. Other food items could include wax worms, super worms, giant meal worms. If feeding any type of large meal worm, do not provide too many at one time as the hard chitinous exoskeletons of the meal worms can cause a blockage, which will result in the animal regurgitating it's food.

Breeding:

Frilled Dragons are more difficult to breed than their cousins, the Bearded Dragons in that you not only have to reduce the amount of heat and the Photo period, but you have to simulate a wet/dry season.

In order to get your Frilled Dragons to breed in captivity, you have to reduce their temperature to the low to mid 70's on the hot side of the cage and reduce the photo period to 10 hours of daylight 14 hours of night. Plan ahead and set a date that you will start the above procedure. A week or two before you reach that date, you will need to remove their water bowl and you should discontinue spraying down the enclosure. At this point you should also stop feeding them.

I drop the temperatures on all of my animals starting in the first week of December through February 15th. (IMPORTANT: Before you hibernate your Frilled Dragons, make sure that they have a good, heavy body weight, if during the time they are hibernating you start to see one of the animals losing an extreme amount of weight [which shouldn't happen if the temperature is low enough], separate that animal and provide some food and water. It may not finish it's brumation, but it's better to have a healthy animal to breed next season then to loose it from dehydration or malnutrition).

When the time comes to turn on the heat lamps and set the lights back to 14 hours of daylight, you must also drench the animals in water to simulate the rainy season and put the water bowl back in the cage. Continue spraying them every day for the next week, after that you may spray them two or three times a week .

A good sign to look for is having the male bob his head and open and close his frill frequently. Another sign that he is ready to breed is quick wiping of the end of his tail. one way to tell if copulation has occurred is to look at the females frill, if there are some holes punched in her frill that is a good sign that the male was trying to mate, but it doesn't always mean that the animals have successfully copulated.

Keep an eye on the females for any digging behavior, at that point I provide a nesting box. Once I see the female digging in it, I start to carefully check for the eggs every day. If no eggs are found in the box, check the rest of the cage. A few times my female ignored the nest box and laid her eggs right next to the water bowl because the male would always jump in there and splash the water out, this made most of the sand wet around the bowl and it became a desirable spot for her to deposit eggs.

Incubation/Hatching:

Once you have collected the eggs, place them in a mixture of vermiculite and water at a ratio of 1:1 by weight. The eggs should be two thirds covered by the vermiculite. Incubate the eggs at 87F in sealed containers with air holes in them. Make sure that the vermiculite never completely dries out, except for the last two weeks of incubation, where adding water at this point may sometimes cause the embryos to drown in the egg. The humidity in the incubator itself should be about 85-90%. Frilled Dragon eggs take anywhere from 60-80 days to hatch. Once they hatch, you should remove them from the box the eggs are in and place them in a container lined with paper towels and put them back in the incubator for a day or two.

Caring for Hatchlings/Juveniles:

Hatchling Frilled Dragons may be housed together for a while, I set up four hatchlings in a 20 gallon long. I provide them with a shallow bowl of water in the middle of the cage so they run through it frequently. Provide several branches for them to climb on and only use newspaper or paper towel as a substrate until they are 7 or 8 months old. At that point you may switch them to Sand or another suitable substrate of your choosing.

Keep their temperature at 85 on the hot side and in the low 70s on the cool side. Feed them appropriately sized crickets every day and spray them down frequently, as baby frilled dragons can dehydrate very easily.