Female bearded dragons generally have smaller heads than males.
A female bearded dragon has only one characteristic that can definitely differentiate her from a male bearded dragon based on her appearance. The most defining characteristic of a female bearded dragon is the lack of a hemipenal bulge, while the male bearded dragon will have two hemipenal bulges. This gender trait, however, is not usually visible in newborn dragons and young dragons, although it is easier to determine the sex in adult bearded dragons.
Bearded Dragons have the ability to puff out and darken their beards at will.
The hemipenal bulges are located under the male bearded dragon’s tail, above the ventral opening. In males, hemipenal bumps are visible on either side of the tail. The female does not have a hemipenis, but there will be a slight bulge in the center of the tail above the ventral opening. While this is the only trait by which to determine the sex of a bearded dragon with certainty, there are other general traits that are more common in males than females and vice versa.
One of the characteristics of bearded dragons is the ability to puff out the beard and darken it. Females can also do this to males, but males generally exhibit this behavior more often than females, and males’ wattles are often darker than dragons’. The dragon puffs out its beard and darkens it as part of courtship routines, when the bearded dragon feels the need to defend its territory, or when the bearded dragon feels threatened.
The size of bearded dragons is not a characteristic of the genus, although females typically have a smaller head than males. Males generally have thicker tails than females, although this cannot be used to determine sex. A bearded dragon’s tail gets thicker as it ages, so an older female bearded dragon may have a thicker history than a younger male bearded dragon.
In many cases, female bearded dragons display less aggressive behavior than male bearded dragons, but as with other traits, this is not always true. Bearded dragons reach sexual maturity at eight months. Female bearded dragons will dig, trying to create burrows to lay their eggs. Even if a female bearded dragon doesn’t mate, she can still lay eggs, with about 20 eggs in a clutch. However, a male bearded dragon can also be seen digging burrows, because some bearded dragons also dig burrows to sleep and in times of stress.