First, it does not matter what your conclusion is, your premise was wrong.

That is the problem with theory, you start your post on theory, by calling monitors oppertunistic feeders. When in fact, they are not, at least not always. Not in capitivity or nature. I know, your shocked.

In captivity, monitors realistically choose a food item. And stick to it. That is not about the species, and in many cases the food item. They behaviorally are like people. They have cultural or behavioral reasons to do so. An example, if raised on mice, they will ignore other prey items until they run out of mice. If raised on crickets, they will ignore other insects, again until they are extremely hungry. For instance, I raised hundreds of ackies and other odatriads on crickets, then a new insect food source appeared, roaches. Many said their ackies loved roaches(they must have been really hungry), but in an attempt to add another prey item, I tried roaches, my "spoiled" monitors would not touch them. I have also fed many assorted wild grasshoppers, cicadas, crickets, while on occasion they would nibble at them, they would not eat them in a fashion they consumed crickets. In fact, there were only two prey items ackies consumed with equal gusto, crickets and lizards, the rest were not perferred.

What is interesting is, this is only particular to my animals, the reason is, One, crickets and mice, filled their needs, and I did not let them starve. So they only had need to seek the common food items in their enviornment. Mice and crickets.

In nature, I found monitors keyed on prey types, that is, their stomach contains, contained a vast majority of one prey type. For instance, the gouldi complex, seems to key on lizards over a large part of their active season. Don't get me wrong or take this out of context, I did see starving individuals, eating anything they can find. But my task was to compare apples to apples, that is, compare healthy successful wild monitors, to healthy successful captive monitors.

This brings up your statement, starving individuals become very oppertuntistic, while normal successful individuals are very honed in on a few successful prey types. That is, they are not very oppertuntistic. I am sure, this changes season to season and year to year, IF NEED BE. Which indicates, their feeding mode depends on individual condition.

If you understood wild reptiles, there are always a wide range of individual conditions, But indeed they mostly reflect the average supportting conditions. For instance, a population can be judged healthy, with a high recruitment rate, the majority if the individuals in good weight. But for sure, their are superior individuals and inferior individuals. The more successful individuals, have found and use a successful pattern of exsistance, the unsuccessful individuals have not found such a pattern and become oppertuntistic and in most cases later perish(fail).

On a different year, that same success non-oppertuntistic population will become unsuccessful and have to become oppertuntistic. By need.

The problem is, field studies, most do not study populations over many normal and natural conditions. The problem lays in, speed, the methods used, the goals are, to do this quick and move on to another subject. While their findings are not really wrong, they are not right either.

Did they study a progressive population, that is, one that is involved in heavy recruitment, expanding? did they study a population in decline. Did they study a population barely holding its own. And lastly did they study indivuduals envolved in life events? These questions are not normally asked, but are indeed part of all populations. As populations are always expanding, contracting or holding steady. They never stay the same for long periods. In captivity our goal is to maintain a healthy population, so its this information that is important.

In the past field researchers or readers of their papers would say, FR your temps are wrong, this paper says this, and you say that. They said the body temps averaged 30.8 C. Of course I have to ignore that, the reason is simple, reptiles use a range of temps for different tasks, they commonly include a set high and set low, in all their daily activies. So the authors or readers, 30.8C, is effectively useless. That temp mostly likely represents what a wandering individual will maintain its body temp. at. I would indeed like to see what a gravid females BT is at, both high and low. Or a feeding individual digesting a large food bolus is maintaining its BT at, again both high and low.

You see, one set temp has little to do with reptiles, as they do not maintain set temps with metabolism, but depend on the enviornment or better yet, the useage of their enviornment for maintaining their working and resting temps.

I bring this up, because, you must understand, a preferred food item or hunting mode, is not based on species and prey type alone, its based on temps, need, condition, season, and lastly availibility.

Yet, most only consider availibility.

One last parting thought, WHY do monitors and other reptilian pests, invade chicken ranches, barns and other mademade structures? They normally do not consume chickens in their diet, yet, they surely think of chicken ranches are a very good oppertuntity. What about barns and such. Hmmmmmmmmm they seem to be a good home for mice and other rodent pests, which monitors and snakes take advantage of, even thought mice may not be part of their natural diet. Also, garbage tips are a favorite home for lacies and perenties(other species as well), and if you actually go thru the junk, all sorts of smaller monitors. Not only do they eat the human garbage, but are more attracted to the rodents and insects that thrive in such places.

In the end, monitors prove to be, choosy as to what they feed on, if food is abundant, or oppertuntistic if food is scarce. While understanding this is important. ITs not, heres why.

The reason, I want my monitors to have a steady food supply, so they do not have to be oppertuntistic. We have control over them being successful or not. So why keep them unsuccessful? to be that is the question of the day???????? FR

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