Reptile & Amphibian Forums

The first new monitor species to be described in 2006 is the long-anticipated Pilbara striped-tail monitor.
Varanus bushi

No, it is not named after GW
Brian Bush - naturalist and amateur herpetologist from Perth.

This is the third monitor named after an amateur.

This is a striped tail monitor from the pilbara that is not a V.caudolineatus. But there are many more, then just this one.

This were considered V.gilleni, which they obviously are not. Some have patterns on their back exactly like gilleni. This pic is in situ.

Now if you could tell me what this one is,

I found many of these, what do you suppose it is? Cheers

Hi FR,

That last pic is really interesting. At first glance it looks like a storri. But the red is in the center with whitish on the sides, instead of the red sides with the whitish stripe running down the middle of its back. I'm guessing a new locality, subspecie, specie? lol. Who knows. I wish i was good at identifying. Trying to identify monitors is so much fun.

I wish you had more pictures of all the monitors you have seen is OZ. Especially the ones that were not common or not yet described.

Thanks
Sean

Actually, they are nothing like a storrs. Look at the tail spines. The head shape is also very different. Its also much smaller in size. And your right, a completely different habitat and different part of the country. Its as different as an ackie is to a storrs. I say that because they are all somewhat similar. hahahahahahahaha

Theres a group, that I call numbtailed monitors, which are seperate from the spinytailed group. The spinytailed group includes Ackies and Storrs. The nubtailed group includes, brevis, kings, gilleni, caudos, western storrs, and many underscribed menbers. For instance, there are at least 6 types of brevis, and 6 types of Kings. And as the start of this thread indicates, many types of gilleni/caudos.

The sad part is, they make distint species out of them, which is totally useless. I understand the use of subspecies is not in vogue at this time. Which I could care less about, but they should add a name between species and genus. And use it. like subgenus. Something to make the names useful.

This new monitor is different then its close relatives, but the new name does not indicate if its relatives are Caudos, gilleni or a Komodo or croc monitor. How sad. Cheers

That is true. It also would of helped me alot in the identification hahaha. I was pretty sure i was incorrect but it was all in fun.

You should post some pics of monitors you have seen in OZ, and have people try to identify them, like you used to. Those were interesting to see what people think and fun to see if you could identify them correctly.

cheers,
sean

Hi Frank,
Your first pic does look somewhat like bushi, only the typical one has more dorsal spotting. And you can't see the distal part of the tail to tell if its striped or not.

The genetics has been done. V. bushi is most closely related to gilleni. More distantly related to caudolineatus

That second pic is very interesting. Can't say I've seen anything like that.

This animals thats now called Bushi, ranges from having a pattern exactly like a gilleni, to somewhat spotted, Its larger then caudolineatus and has a different shaped head. Its head is a bit longer. They occur from the southern pilbara district to well north of Sandfire Roadhouse. They differ from V.gilleni is a few very distint ways, the head shields are totally different and they lack the enlarged scales near the vent that are typical of V.gilleni. Their vent scales are similar to V.caudolineatus. They also overlap in range and habitat. Possibly intergrade in areas.

Yes, it has a striped tail, but so does all its near relatives. The amount of striping varies from alot to a little, depending on the individual, and not the local. This is true of V.gilleni and V.caudolineatus, as well.

I do not agree that V.bushi, should be called that, as there are many very close forms of this animal, are they all going to be called a new species. The lower picture is of a distint different type closely related to western storrs, but very distint from it. Both are more like V.primordis, then either storrs or acanthurus. And yes, there are many types of this group too. Will all of them become new species. There are also many types in the kingorum group as well, my question will remain, will all of these be new species as well.

If you remember many years ago, we argued over how many types of ackies there are. I hope you realize there are many. Will all of these be new species.

I am a fan of subspecies, which is not in vogue now. So maybe they can use subgenus to replace species and species to replace genus. And species to replace subspecies. Or simply use what is already useful. As the reality is, there are many types that are closely related in tight groups. Yes, V.Bushi is only slighly different from V.gilleni, but much closer then to gilleni then to any other varanid. And yes, the undiscribed pic is close to western storrs, but distint, so on and so forth.

I imagine after a while, there will be a thousand species of varanids or close to that. Consider every island morph can be a species and there are at least 20,000 islands in the known range of varanids. Including Australia, indo, malays, etc. We better make room on our book shelves for some fat varanid books. Cheers

Sounds awesome, can you post the information about the paper describing it? ie What journal, what volume, etc. I'd love to read it.
Thanks!

Here your are

K.P. APLIN, A.J. FITCH & D.J. KING A new species of Varanus Merrem (Squamata: Varanidae) from the Pilbara region of Western Australia, with observations on sexual dimorphism in closely related species. Zootaxa 1313: 1-38 (14 Sept. 2006) 9 plates