Many years ago, we "tried" heated burrows and night houses(used for torts) etc. All met with dismal failure, to one degree or more. hahahahahahahaha

Monitors understand how to pick hot from warm, or cool to warm, but cold never enters their brains(for the vast majority of species) As in, it appears to not be programed with most species and most species are very tropical. Which means, 99% of varanids occur between the tropic lines.

A well know heat/cold problem. When monitors body temps drop below a certain degree, they lose the ability to understand that and often burn themselves basking. Many tropical reptiles do this, burms, boas, etc. But if they never drop below a certain level, they will never burn themselves. While thats a problem eaisly solved, I mention it to make a point, there are some things they simply do not get.

Now take into consideration, that all monitors feed on the same prey items(everything that lives and can be consumed) They are not restricted by particular prey items. And that includes plants. So what on earth restricts many many species from extended farther north and south then the tropics????

Some interesting examples are species that occur from the tropics to well south/north of the tropics. Take Lacies, our lacies do not die when allow to go below freezing, in fact, they have no problems with temps in the twenties. Thats not hard to understand, as they occur to the very south of Australia. But they also occur to north of Carins, well within the tropics. There, they do not experience freezing or winter. Its the same species, but do they have the same abilities. As in, can you take the tropical individuals and have them survive in the south or the southern individuals and have them survive in the north???

In my limited experience the tropical lacies can indeed withstand freezing. That also is true with V.tristis, which occurs to the very top of oz, to south of the tropics. But other species like storrs or V.scalaris, take one look at anything close to freezing and they are DEAD. As in, they do not play that game. Yet, they occur side by side, with tristis.

Does this work with all varanid species, that do that? heck if I know, you will have to test it on a one by one basis.

Which brings us back to Your choices, Black waters and blacktrees, they do not have any idea of what your talking about. Freezing and associated temps are foreign to them. Its not in their computor.

Now, if you keep their enclosures at room temps up to varius hot basking areas, you will succeed in ways you cannot understand.

A deciding factor with temps also appears to be bulk, large bulking monitors, REQUIRE the most consistant temps, as they cannot quickly absorb or release heat. So they run in the middle range, never allowing extremes. Small individuals of the same species, can and do use the extremes, as with less bulk, they can both gain heat and release heat quickly.

So again, two of the species you picked, as adults, are bulky and are very limited as to a range of temps they can function in.

Also, blacktrees appear to be very tropical in their temp needs, not understanding temps below say, 60F or above 120F. As they never had to develop methods to work with something they never are exposed to.

So again CONTEXT rears its ugly head, folks here me talking about ackies, then use that infor on something else. For instance, The Sav book by daniel bennett, is horrible in that way. They copied my methods for ackies(tooo the Teeeee) and had very very limited success with Savs, then wrote a book. Would I use ackie methods on Savs, No sir I would not. Two different items you know. I would use the basic ideas, then modify them to Savs.

I mention that because, its not the temps that are the problem, its how each species understands how to get those temps, that must be understood.

So, I have terms like usable temps and unusable temps. You can offer 135F until your blue in the face(ok, red in the face) and your monitor may not use it. Change the way it can use that temp and it will use it like crazy. In otherwords, just because you offer it, does not mean you offered it IN A WAY THE MONITOR UNDERSTANDS.

So yes, thats why I recomend you start slowly and figure out that stuff in a way, YOU UNDERSTAND and works in an area you LIVE IN.

Again, those buildings do not appear to have what it takes to work in a cold climate. But you could show more pics of areas you intend to use. Maybe something good could come from it.

So you "know" Scott, hahahahahahahahaha I enjoy him to no end, hahahahahahaha Cheers

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