CLOSED: Does someone recognize these eggs?

They are about a quarter inch in length, and chicken egg shaped. The shells are dry and not glued together.

Here is a close up.

Warning - Next picture is of the embryo in the egg.

Do you recognize the embryo? I can't tell if it's insect or reptile.

X

A quarter inch in length and you got that picture?! Wow!

Where did you find them - on the ground, in the ground, on a plant? Are the shells soft, leathery, hard?

These are gecko lizard eggs. I would lean towards them being some type of lizard eggs.
http://www.hibiscusholidays.com/images/hh41.jpg

A different lizard:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1339/685599518_092d0b2b95.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.flickr.com/photos/danielgreene/685599518/&h=333&w=500&sz=143&hl=en&start=5&um=1&tbnid=cHfzLOx6iZXntM:&tbnh=87&tbnw=130&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dlizard%2Beggs%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN

This message was edited Jul 23, 2008 8:15 PM

Slender glass lizard is native to SC. http://www.uga.edu/srelherp/lizards/ophatt.htm

The shells are hard. I found them in the crannies of a brick wall. Before I touched them I looked to see if anything was guarding them and didn't see anything. The glass lizards eggs appear to be more elongated than the ones I have and too many.

I'm going to crack another egg in a few days to see if the embryo has developed enough for identification.

X

This message was edited Jul 24, 2008 9:32 AM

Some lizards don't guard their eggs... I still think that's what they are - we'll see.

You may be right, but there are well over 50 eggs there. Perhaps they clutch more than once.

http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/neparc/products/RiskAssessPDFs/Squamata/EggsPerFemale_squamates.pdf

I'm certainly going to keep an eye on them. Hopefully I can catch when they start hatching if something else doesn't get to them first.

X

I thought they looked like gecko eggs, too, but I've never seen more than 4 in a single spot, ever, usually less than that, and they are always hidden way back in nooks and crannies that anything larger than a gecko can't get into, that's why they don't have to guard them, did you have to move things to get to them? Still, that's way too amny eggs.

Nope .. they were sitting there just as you see. I'll crack another egg today and see what the embryo looks like .. I'm thinking maybe skink, but as you noticed .. waaaayyy too many eggs.

X

Not gecko eggs, never laid out in the open. Was the shell leathery?

I'm thinking snake.

Well, just cracked a few more .. it appears the majority are empty/unfertilized. The embryo is even more unrecognizable. Just kind of like a white blob.

X

its not n insect or a reptile its a anphibian it seems to be a frog egg what you saw in the last picture was the tadpole

I thought amphibian eggs were laid in water. I can't picture tadpoles swimming on brick walls. And they are round and clear, in a clump and covered by a gelatinous blob to protect them. Not hard, either. I don't see how they can be amphibian eggs.

They are too small for snake eggs, which are leathery.

From Britannica:

Most lizards reproduce by laying eggs. In some small species, the number of eggs is rather uniform for each laying or clutch. For example, all anoles (Anolis) lay but a single egg at a time, many geckos lay one or two eggs (depending upon the species), and some skinks have clutches of two eggs. A more general rule is that clutch size varies with the size, age, and condition of the mother. A clutch of four to eight eggs may be considered typical, but large lizards such as the iguanas may lay 50 or more eggs at one time. Lizard eggs are usually leathery-shelled and porous; they can expand by the absorption of moisture as the embryos grow. An exception occurs in the majority of egg-laying geckos, whose eggs have shells that harden soon after they are deposited and then show no further change in size or shape.

So, it appears, that unless there are multiple clutches here of gecko eggs, I'm back to square one!!!

I sure hope some of those eggs hatch, because I sure am befuddled at this point!!! And mighty curious.