I have a pair of panthers that are about 2 years old now. I put them together about 2 weeks ago (not my first attempt by any means) for a period of 24 hours. The females colours were receptive but I never actually seen them copulate. The day after, her colour had changed to black with orange splotchs all over. I separated them and she kept this colour for about 2 to 3 days but now has gone to a more orange colour with not as much black. Could she be gravid? She appears to be getting bigger but maybe thats just hopefull thinking on my part. I have attached a pic of here. Let me know what you think.

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I don't know for sure but the simptomes you described seems to me that she is gravid.

But I would never let them together for 24hrs. We even had death cases here in forum. The guy let them together for 1h and returned with female dead lying on the bottom. She was very stressed and died.

Most of the 24 hour period was actually at night. I had put them together around 5 pm and separated them the next day at around 11 am, so not exactly 24 hours. I felt some what confident that he wouldn't hurt her as I did not see any real aggression towards her except for the normal head bobbing. But thanks for the tip.

She's most likely gravid. She's turned back to normal colors because she is not seeing the male. Let her see him again now and it will confirm or deny her status.

And for what it's worth, although I've heard of two deaths during breeding, it is very rare. I've left pairs of many different species together for days at a time to breed over the last 17 years and never had a problem.

IMHO you can leave a pair together for a period of time as long as you watch to see that the female isn't repelling the male or showing her non-receptive colors (dark).

I left one set of my veiled chams together until the female rejected the male....she turned black with spots....and the male climbed to the bottom of the enclosure. There was no aggression until that moment.