Theres a little more to it. Often times its not about cold, particularly in equatorial areas. Its about hydration and cool. If we keep our monitors fed and water, they come out in very cold temps, anything from 50F and up. But if we do not water or feed them regularly(they get water from food) They quickly go down at first chance.

As far as I can tell, what allows reproduction is a choice of temps. They do not reproduce when its always cool or always hot. They need cool and hot to reproduce. If you provide that, they will reproduce all months of the year.

Even indoors with ackies, if you have normal temps and stop feeding them, and the substrate is suitable, they will go down.

So yes, going down is a survival mechanism and is done for many reasons.

Of course a huge confusion is applied to desert monitors. Theres a paper discribing how Russian desert monitors hibernate, but ALL Desert monitors, in the states are not from russia, they are as mentioned, african. Which is clearly a different habitat then Russia. This is just another error inexperienced folks do, they apply the extremes to the middle. Which is not all that wise. While indeed there are some monitors that HAVE to hibernate they are indeed the extremes and could be thought of as such. Cheers

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