Argentine black and white, about two years, and I noticed this week that his sides visibly heave when he is out basking and for a good while after he eats. It is not subtle, you can watch it from across the room.
No noise with it, no bubbles, nose is clean, he eats like a machine and is out most of the day. I think I have just started paying attention to something that was always there, but I would rather ask.
Since you are already looking, measure the enclosure properly rather than trusting it. Basking and ambient with a temperature gun and digital probes, a clear gradient, humidity on a hygrometer for your species, and real ventilation.
Respiratory infections in reptiles almost always trace back to that list: too cold, humidity wrong in one direction or the other, poor airflow, a dirty enclosure. Getting the numbers now means that if anything does change you know what moved.
Worth knowing tegus often brumate and breathe slowly and shallowly through it. That is the opposite picture, not a worry.
What would bring him to me: wheezing, clicking or whistling, an open mouth when he is neither basking nor hot, bubbles or mucus at the nose or mouth, holding the head up or stretching the neck to breathe, a runny nose, going lethargic, going off his food.
You have explicitly ruled out most of that, which is why the thread is relaxed. If a brumating tegu shows any of it, that still needs seeing rather than being filed as part of the slowdown.
@after_a_rat · 2w ago · 3 replies
You have described normal tegu breathing and I suspect your last sentence is right. Lizards breathe using the body wall muscles, so the movement is far more visible than it is in a mammal, and people notice it one day after two years of it happening.
The two moments you named are the two most expected. A big meal takes up room in the body cavity so breathing looks deeper for a while, and a warm basking animal has a higher metabolism and shows it.
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@sides_heaving · 2w ago
He also breathes hard for ages after I handle him. Is that the same thing?
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@after_a_rat · 2w ago
Same thing. Reptiles take far longer than mammals to recover from exertion, so a tegu that has climbed about or struggled during handling can breathe heavily for a good stretch afterwards. It is not fitness, it is how their physiology recovers.
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