As I've said before, if you'd started this conversation about how conditions are different where you are because of the heat (or because of the cold, for you seem to go either way at times), rather than try to convince me that wild lace monitors don't nest in termite mounds, the whole conversation might have gone in a different, more meaningful direction and we could have discussed ways of dealing with that.



I've already mentioned that a good mate of mine has his females nesting outdoors in mounds of dirt, rather than nest boxes, but he lives in the tropics where his ground temperature is just right for nesting throughout the breeding season. Where I live, heating the entire substrate to a nesting temperature would be keeping the species too warm - I'd rather they have the option of going from hot basking spot to cooler areas if they want to retreat. Mates that house their lace monitors outdoors in Australia, but live outside the tropics, use nest boxes.



As for how other keepers might absorb the information in this discussion, that presents an interesting consideration. Here in Australia, lace monitor keepers usually have their animals housed outdoors and I'm one of the exceptions. Given that most of the readers of this forum aren't in Australia, but in the US and Canada, do you think that if any of them were to get ahold of some lace monitors they'd end up housing them indoors, as I do, or outdoors, as you do? Much of the USA (and all of Canada) is unsuitable for housing lace monitors outdoors, so in all likelihood they'd be housed indoors and they'd have the same options of controlled conditions that I have, without the climate 'problems' you face.

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