Three of the problems with studies on Monitors diets in the wild are that there just are not that many and the ones that are out there only cover monitors for a limited time period and only cover a few populations of species that often have large ranges. I can think of four off the top of my head and two of those were done by Daniel Bennett. With his studies on V. olivaceous being a bit more extensive than his studies on V. exanthematicus. Another was in a book on 3 large species of reptiles in W. Kalimantan (author and title escape me right now.) a fourth one I am aware of is from a researcher here in Fl. (Whose name also escapes me right now.) on the non-native population of V. niloticus. I am certain there are more I am not aware of but the four I mention are some of the most extensive studies I have seen regarding diet of wild caught monitors. The problem is these studies represent a small window into the actual diet that these animals eat and there are also field observations that show a good majority of monitors are opportunistic predators. while rodents may be readily available with in the range of V. exanthematicus they may not be able to capture rodents as often as they would like to except possibly during the nesting season of rodents (which may not be when the study was done. ) there is also alot of talk of how the skull structure of monitors in the polydaedalus sub-genus are designed for the consumption of mollusks something not indicated in the studies of the stomach contents of either monitor in this subgenus I have seen studies on but something I have personally observes with V. niloticus. Bennetts book is an excellent study on these lizards and a good guide for starting with these lizards but it is far from the last word on them and is only the observations of 2 people.

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