Bearded Dragon Behavior & Characteristics

The unique behaviors of bearded dragons make them one of the special animal and pet that many people love. It doesn’t matter if it is lively captured in wild or bred in captivity, you may see different types of behaviors you can observe from them. These are common bearded dragon behaviors that you may see most of the time.

A better understanding of bearded dragon behaviors may help you in taking care of them because certain behaviors may carry their language.

Inflated Beard
You may notice that this is the most common behavior of bearded dragons. Their beard under the neck area is expanded, seems to be inflated or filled with air. Both male and female have conducted this kind of behavior, however it happen more often with male. They show this during mating or it is aggressive. If it’s getting more aggressive, mouth may be opened as a threatening sign to its enemy.

Bobbing Head
If you have a bearded dragon as your pet, you may notice that another common type of bearded dragon behavior would be head-bobbing. This happen more often to male as head-bobbing is a sign of masculine and supremacy to other disrespectful male dragons when they are housed together. Bearded dragon may show this for courtship to female dragons.

Arm waving
As compared to the bearded dragon’s behavior of head-bobbing, arm waving is the opposite sign. It is shown by subordinate male dragon, females and juveniles as obedience to the more dominant dragon. The posture is shown as they will lift one of its forehands and wave while stand on its legs and a hand. If you’re breeding your bearded dragon, and notice the female dragon is waving its arm. It might be a sign the female is rejecting the male’s courtship.

Tail curbing
This is the sign of alertness that shown by adult bearded dragons. This is a posture that they will bend their tail toward their body or head. This means that the bearded dragon is staying attentive and it’s a sign of healthy dragon.