Sexing Crocodilians

The correct identification of the sex of your crocodilian will only be necessary if you wish to breed them. With all the rescues and animals needing to be rescued and the low price for spectacled caiman, there really is no reason or need for the average owner to breed caiman. But knowing how to find the sex of your animal is a handy tool.

An experienced herper will have a better idea of what to look for when determining the sex, however, with the help of the information and photographs below, this should give you a good idea on how to do this yourself.

A word of caution: The safest way is the pinky probe, which cannot be done until the animal is about 3 feet long.

Visual Identification
The first method is to visually see the male sex organ. This can be done by holding the animal up while it is angry. Either you've invaded its space or it was feeding or mating or you were doing maintenance and taking too much time. But if it's angry and you are able to handle it by picking it up, you will be able to tell if it is a male, easily.



Other than lifting an angry croc up by its neck while it's trying to breed or eat, an easier way would be by visual inspection. When your animal is out of the water and secured there are other ways to determine the sex.

Popping
The next method of sex determination is called "popping". You use pressure on the tail to "pop" out the male's penis (if it's a male). I highly advise against this method. One mistake and you have irreparably harmed your animal. Also, it can only be used on young caiman, like hatchlings or yearlings. However, for educational purposes and to be able to understand what a trained herper is doing, I will explain "popping".

You bend the tail towards the animal's belly so that you compress the cloaca. Next, using your thumb and index finger spread the cloaca apart from the sides and then apply pressure to both sides so that the cloaca starts to spread outwards and the tip of male's penis should literally pop out. If you don't see a penis then it's probably a female.



Tweezer Method
Next, if you absolutely, positively, without a doubt, need to know the sex of your hatchling there is the tweezer method. Again, one wrong move and the animal will have no sex. So wait if you can. For educational purposes, the tweezer method will also be explained.

Take a pair of tweezers, KY the tip, slide the tweezers into the hatchlings cloaca about one half (1/2) inch and open the tweezers, to open the cloaca.

Shine a very powerful flashlight into the cloaca and see if you see a penis. If not, it's probably a female.



Pinky Probe
This action involves inserting your pinky into the caiman's cloaca and reaching forward, toward the animal's belly and feeling for the penis. The male has a single penis, unlike other reptiles, that starts at the edge of the cloaca and curls from the belly toward the opening, so that the head lies directly beneath the opening. So, if you feel a fleshy tube as you stick your finger in its cloaca, and reach forward toward the belly, you've got a male.









Disclaimer: Your results may vary. Don't try this at home. Attempts at sexing animals by anyone other than an experienced herpatologist may be harmful to the animal. This page for educational purposes only.

Good post Bam.

How come they expose all when angry?

Must be a testosterone thing.

No, I'm kidding. I really don't know why.

It is true, though. I have found through my experience dealing with them over the years that they like to shoot me the real bird whenever I mess with them and they're more not in the mood to be messed with than their usual not in the mood to be messed with! (As you can tell by the pictures above).

So I'm wondering now... is it only crocodilians that do this? I've not heard of it before in other reptiles. But that don't mean to say it doesn't happen.

Great mate that's certaintly new info

Your Pinky! Thanks Bam!

Reptile Rescue Den wrote:

So I'm wondering now... is it only crocodilians that do this? I've not heard of it before in other reptiles. But that don't mean to say it doesn't happen.

Is there any chance it has to do with crocs being the only reptile with a single penis compaired to other reptiles that have hemi-penises?

I dunno. I'm asking.

Probably the reason right there

When sexing Niles we also use the pinky method.
When the croc is large, it becomes the hand method. And crocs really don't enjoy the process

If they don't wink at you afterwards you're doing it wrong.

Ja, if Im a 4 metre half a ton hunk of teeth, armour like skin and can rip almost anything to shreds, NOBODY shove anything up down below and get away with it!