My first monitor was a dumeril's. He did wonderfully and tamed down with little/no effort. He shed well and looked great. He ate for me like a champ and was fairly undemanding. Had a daily routine worked out, and wasn't fazed by much of anything. He was an imported adult. Compared to the other species I've worked with through my job, he was a saint. The other monitors we received in that shipment also thrived, even without the deep soil substrate and 130 degree basking site that I provided mine. Technically, the rest of the group should have slowly declined, but instead the longer they stayed at the store the thicker and better looking they got.



Maybe we just got a particularly spectacular batch, but I find it hard to believe that 10 monitors imported from who-knows-where indonesia are all going to have the exact same quirks. Subsequent batches have had very similar characteristics. Give them time to get settled, feed them, worm them, and be patient. They do great.
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"We call them dumb animals, and so they are, for they cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words."

- Anna Sewell (1820-1878)

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