Reptile & Amphibian Forums

What is your experience and opinion on keeping 2 same sized large monitors in the same enclosure? For example lets say a water and a blackthroat? Lets just say the enclosure has enough basking spots, hiding spots etc to house 2 large monitors.

I would assume that if this can be done then they would have to be introduced to each other beforehand.

Anyone here kept large monitors of different species together?

and its that old "context" thing. Their is no answer as there is no standard.

Most people starve their monitors, so fighting and cannibelism is common. Starving occurs in many ways. Even feeding weekly or bi-weekly, causes starvation.

As you may know, when ever I put different species together, they not only get along, then often breed. This is true with big and some monitors. You have to keep in mind, when I keep same species groups together, they too breed.

In my experience, different species get along better then, same species. As the same species without question have species specific behavioral complications. This is often missing with different species.

That coupled with the will to recruit often makes crosses very very easy with varanids.

Of course if you ask the theoretical varanid group, its a no no on so many fronts. Cheers and be careful or you will make crosses. Cheers

that does make sense. that reminds me of a book i read by Konrad Lorenze called Aggression. he's one of the grandfathers of ethology. he went into some detail describing when and why animals are aggressive to each other. to make a long story short the animals described saw members of their own species as competition for food and mating rights, which resulted in passionate fighting. they didn't recognize the other species as any kind of threat. that may not be entirely true with varanids as most species do compete for the same types of foods. cheers

Hey Frank, you said here that even feeding bi-weekly causes starvation in monitors. Would this still be the case with monitors of around 4ft in length and up or just juveniles. I feed my young blackthroat on a daily basis while the water monitor (which is 4.5ft) gets fed 2 or 3 times a week. Ill feed both till they refuse food.

If I was to house them together at a later point (when both are 5ft and over)would you suggest I feed them almost daily but in smaller quantities to prevent any type of aggression towards one another?

I am not being offensive or trying to be mean, I am trying to get folks to understand they are keeping a living animal. And a reptile at that.

To make matters worse, we here are keeping living reptiles. The subject of that sentence is very important. Most people forget they have reptiles, and treat them as dogs or mice or some should other animal.

I am sorry, you should not even keep a dog like that.

Animals do not follow a scheduled routine. You know that and so to others here. You and others tell me of winter, spring, summer and fall. But you forget what that means. To animals it does not mean the four seasons, it means four basic sets of conditions(actually thats what it means for you) These conditions and of course many others effect reptiles differently then it effects mammals. Mammals/birds etc, have a relatively constant metabolism. Reptiles do not.

Reptiles do not run at one speed like mammals or birds. They run at a whole range of speeds. Each of these speeds requires a different amount of energy to sustain a normal level of activity or just life. Of course its easy to understand at cooler(winter) temps they require less food, warmer temps(spring) require more energy. Summer even more, and fall more then spring, but less then summer. Mind you, this explination is less then a first grade level of understanding.

To complicate that, the speed is also effected by behavior, and physical events. A fast growing monitor needs to use its enviornment to attain a higher speed. It will seek out conditions to allow that. A conditioning female also requires a much higher speed plus a lower speed to conserve energy. As opposed to non productive(not just non reproductive) individuals that attempt to conserve and use lower speeds. And it may not matter what season it is.

Your from Canada? so you think you understand hibernation in reptiles, so now consider, 99.9% of exsisting varanids do not live(and occur) where there is a need to hibernate because of cold. They, varanids, are equatorial, occur between the tropic lines, cancer and capricorn. To give that a mental picture, thats about 400 miles(quick guess) south of me, in Tucson Arizona. And reptiles do not hibernate here. They do change speeds.

What this is suppose to convey is, you or I cannot say what and when to feed a reptile to keep it from starving. Only the individual reptile can tell you that. And its based on conditions and behavioral and physical need. For instance, I can tell when a female is going to breed by watching her need for food change under specific conditions. It tells me, she is changing her speed to accomplish a task.

This goes for growing reptiles, they are not suppose to grow at a constant rate or many months or a year, or several years. They grow in super quick short spurts, then rest between those periods. You could say seasonally, but thats wrong too, its seasonally and during periods of support.

What gets me is, you humans, read this stuff, hear this stuff and still follow manmade routines that have resulted in extreme failure over decades(follow a feeding schedule based on nothing but failure)

I only give you this "advanced" explination because you hang around or are friends with Ravi. Ok, its not advanced, in fact, its one of the first things HUMANS should understand about reptiles. In fact, its one of the first things you are TAUGHT about reptiles in begining biology.

Ok, lets get away from that cerebral stuff. Lets get down to actual stuff. When a reptile is hungry(enough to get it out of bed) it hunts for food. If its more then a little hungry, it hunts more. As the level of hunger grows, it explores more sources of food and INCLUDES more varity of food. When its really hungry, it will include items that at other times were considered to dangerous to consume or not of good quality. If it gets to a point of starving, it will without question turn to cannibalism.

Now theres a giant other problem. We humans do not understand what cannibalism is and we made the word up. Its to consume your own kind. Unfortunately we humans made the rules of what our own kind is and its not very accurate. Consider, animals do not follow our rules and neither did/do, tribal humans or primitive humans. Again for your understanding, many tribal humans called themselves, "the people". So their tribal name was, "the people" in their own language. What did that mean? It meant that they were the people. Others, were not, they were the others. The point is, the others included all other animals. Other humans were the same as other animals. So consuming the others was NOT cannibalism. IT was merely consuming an other animal. You see, it was not us, did not talk like us, did not act like us, did not dress like us, did not smell like us, and in many cases, they ate us. So they were not us and without question, not the people, we are "the people".

Sir, that is what monitors think. If its not us, then by simple elimination, its the others, then its not cannibalism.

The point, whew. You can keep a normal happy group of monitors together without problem. Then lower the level of food, the result will be more adverse enteraction. The lower it somemore, which will cause them to nip and bite eachother(they do not seem to really want to eat eachother) then lower it to a level of starvation and without question this group that had got along so well will WITHOUT question consume itself. Sir, thats not being a cannibal, thats forced cannibalism. That is what we practice with our monitors as we as a group of keepers are too dumb to understand that reptiles have different degrees of hunger and respond just like we would. Whew again.

The reason for this, if your going to attempt to keep several monitors in the same cage, then you need to understand, it will only work as well as you allowed it.

Or use the very simple answer, its a no no, if you do not understand reptiles and most here don't. So the no no answer is very accurate as applied to the "normal" keeper. Cheers

It's just more effecient for them to get smaller and more frequent meals. Having fewer large meals is indicative of a feast/famine type routine and their bodily functions and cycling could reflect that. That said, my large monitors only eat 2-3 times a week for my scheduling's sake. To increase breeding chances it's probably better to feed smaller, daily, which I always say I'm going to start doing. Especially for the female. Who wants bring children into this world with feast/famine conditions?

So Mike, what became of your female, you said she was all swollen and such and not feeding??????? Thanks

I had posted a few follow ups. She's back to her old self, eating, and seems to be doing fine. I thought she was starting to get swollen but nothing came of it. It will be interesting to see if anything happens with the new female. Thanks.

Hey Baz,
It can be trial and error. But I agree with what Frank said, that different species probably get along better, or at least don't fight as often as same specie introduction.
Two male blackroughnecks will usually go at eachother and tear eachother apart. On the contrary, I had a 1.1 pair of adult argus and a 1.1 pair of adult roughnecks. One day I decided to put them all together in a large cage and there was never the slightest hint of aggression and they all got along perfectly. But mano mano, when it came feeding time it was nutso. The male argus routinely jumped from a 9 foot high ledge to get in first. Both the male argus and roughneck were huge, but got along fine.

Is that those who are most wanting to try it is for convenience as they would need to set up 2 big cages otherwise. If you are truelly sucessful keeping both species (not as many who try, new keepers who look at sucess as keeping a lizard alive for a few weeks, months, or a year) it can happen sucessfully. The most common keeper who tries this wants to put a BT in with the bosc they have had for a short time (ie doesnt want to set up the second cage).
Ive mixed similar species together for short times, and some for a while, but within reason, nothing with big differences. A good friend had a few of different species live together for periods of time with no problems, but I dont call how well those animals did sucessful, it was convenience also.
Any way you do this it is a gamble. I wouldnt expect most keepers to try mixing species even that Ive tried, but then again many are struggling with one single lizard of one species, and dont realize they are struggling.
Im currently reducing my reptile collection (trying).

"Im currently reducing my reptile collection (trying)."
Why would you ever do such a foolish thing?! hahahaha

And Ive been looking at getting rid of the BT I have, it was given to me. Just looking at keeping my monitor collection down to Sobek, the flavi-argus, and the ackies, also my single beardie that my wife claimed.
Im glad these guys arent difficult to care for, the 7 week old just moved in a few days ago, hes learning so fast already. Hes got a good teacher in our 1 yr 4 month old, he loves the little guy.

Beautiful pupps!

Thanks guys. What I was thinking of eventually doing was building 2 enclosures in my basement..one bigger enclosure in one room and one smaller one in the room next to it but they would be linked through a "window". Only doing this because otherwise I would have to knock down a wall. The smaller enclosure would be too small for one monitor to really move around in but it could be a place to retreat and get away if it wanted to. I was also thinking of making the smaller enclosure (8ft x 4ft) the one with a few feet of dirt in it for the blackthroat to dig around in while the big enclosure would be tiled (or should I fill both with dirt?)

As cross breeding was mentioned.... you couldnt cross an asian species with an african one could you??

"As cross breeding was mentioned.... you couldnt cross an asian species with an african one could you??"

why does this even interest you. is breeding two animals of the same species boring?

Pick one species and get both sexes. Sell your other species. Why cross at all even if they could produce viable offspring? People do it in a pinch when they can't find a female,etc. It's hard enough bolstering the CBB population of the larger monitors. There are thousands of albig's out there in US homes and breeding successes can be counted on one hand.

It was a question out of curiosity but I guess I dont have the same hangups about cross breeding as some people. As for breeding the blackthroats there are 4 of us who work at the zoo here who have have them and the goal is to breed them eventually.

That would be great. It's not so much of a hang up as a question of why. If we had hundreds of people successfully breeding monitors and it was "old hat", then OK, maybe some experimentation to liven things up. But monitor breeding is ridiculously spotty other than a few (FR,etc.), so it just seems like get it down and then twist and morph later if you are bored. As a whole, we don't "have it down" at all. Still lots of monitors withering and dying out there. I can't stand the "morph" phasing of ball pythons and leopard geckos other than it's a means to make more money selling them. It detracts from worrying about keeping the animal healthy and happy to me b/c people are more interested in "how rare a morph/species do you got?" Do you know what i mean?

Sorry to butt in. I know what you mean. But all those ball and gecko morphs are very, very coool. And if it wasn't for new morphs, you could say good bye to the vast majority of the hobby as a whole. Do you think this Kingsnake website would stay up with nothing but regular ball pythons being sold?
Everything comes down to money, excitement, ego, sex (okay, the sex one is mostly me). Just the way things work in general. Things need an economic value to survive unfortunetly.

Money has little to do with it. You explination is good, but its not really about money. Its about interest. If there was no interest, there would be no money. Would you pay money for something your not interested in?

Morphs, phases, species, subspecies are only things that hold a persons interest.

With me, its behavior, its very interesting for different species to not act different. For species that are not suppose have the ability to breed to breed like it was normal.

At my level of experience, its very plain and normal for two individuals of the same species to produce offspring. That is expected and normal. Its not normal and very interesting to see other possibilities actually occur. That is my interest.

As far as what people put in cages, it does not matter if its the same species or not. After all, our cages are not nature and actually have nothing to do with nature or the animals in it.

We should do what keeps our interest. If that takes morphs, fine, if not fine. All in all, its easier to do work, if you like your work and keeping monitors is work. Cheers

Morphs are good in my opinion because it cuts down on the wild caught species. Less will be imported if more people are interested in buying them. It doesnt slow it down enough usually to be successful, but it is atleast a little. Although ball pythons are still heavily imported, they are also being captive bred more because of their morphs.

So in my opinion its good. Not because of the colors or rarity, but because it makes people want to breed them in captivity. In my opinion it is the wrong reason to breed them though, but whatever floats your boat i guess.

cheers,
Sean

if you need to morph them to stay interested, then i think you're not cut out for this field or hobby and will lose all interest sooner than later if the $$$ doesn't roll in.

supporting morphs only because they are CB is weak. all it does is pollute the market with half breeds, and sold to unsuspecting buyers as pure. when in reality those same individuals could have bred with its own kind putting much needed pure CBB on the market and doing their part in reducing demand from their natural habitat.
but that's just my opinion

Hey Shay,

I do not care for morphs. I could have a normal nile or a albino, i do not care. As long as its a nile. I do not have niles although hahaha. I have some storrs. No i am not in this hobby for morphs. I am in it for the fun of it, and i think you are to and you need to relax a little. hahaha. I am not in this for money at all. If i was in this for money i would not be here talking to you about MONITORS. Monitors are basically all about behavior and a ton of fun. (thats why you got arguses correct?) I am succesful enough to think about morphs at the time if ever.

I think people should raise the whatever animal for what that animal is. Not for rarity or color alone. But i think people can choose a reptile for whatever reason as long as they can properly provide for that animal. It doesnt effect the way i think of my monitors.

Have fun and cheers,
Sean

I don't think people buy $5,000 caramel x hyo x piebald BPs because they are bored.....they want to make another 50 babies and sell them at that ridiculous price......money, money,money. The more of the "industry" i see, the less i like what i see. Expos are a great example. Sweater bin reproduction, animals shoved in deli cups ... it's like an assembly line and just seems blasphemous to me. Reminds me of the kids walking into the meat grinder on Pink Floyd's "The Wall" video. Where am i going with this?

have your pudding if you don't eat your meat?

The unfortunate thing is, humans are humans. They act very strange and for questionably being the smartest animal, the may not be very smart.

The problem with the monitor industry is, monitors have no value. PERIOD. The cage cost more then the monitor, the litebulb cost more then Savs, etc etc. And you wonder why no one is breeding Savs or hardly any monitors. There is nothing to be had from doing so. They are a lot of work with very little reward.

If a Sav cost 3 to 5 hundred bucks, a normal Sav. Then folks would be breeding them. The cost would level out at about twice or three times cost of producing them. Sir, that is normal.

Because they are not profitable, people breed them for fun, then stop. Consider hundreds of people have bred monitors, including Savs and albigs.

The real problem is development. Once you understand what it takes to continue to breed them, you cannot afford to spend more money on larger cages, buildings, and other such things to continue to successfully breed them. Morphs or otherwise.

I was very lucky, I bred amoung the first small monitors, and hit the market on a timely basis. I produced them, when they were valuable(timing). That supported breeding numbers of them, it supported buildings, and other infrastructure, WATER, ELECTRIC, tools for business, producing crickets and rodents. Machines for servicing monitors, machines to produce cages, etc and etc.

I have one of the only built from the ground up facilities(that actually works) to produce monitors. Its funny how academics would yack about this and that and they tooo missed the entire boat. I have facilities for doing this and they have a monitor cage. hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Yes, that is silly to me. Sadly my facilities is one half rodent breeding now and soon to be more. The reason is, mice pay the bills(what the heck is profit anyway?) Monitors do not.

Back to the point. The reason this business is doomed is, there is no money in it. Have you ever considered, laws are being passed to stop the keeping of monitors. The reason is the same, no money. Its not about public safty or public danger, we all know a Kitty cat or fido is more dangerous then the most dangerous monitors, including a KD. The reason is, there is no money in it. If there was, the state, the cities, the counties would tax it and they would get their share, after all, thats what its about, getting their share. The government wants profitable businesses, not hobbies. They want their share.

Why on earth do you think they allow all that nasty importing, its a tax base you silly human. Cats, dogs, fish, pet and feeder rodents, all produce tax revenues, therefore, they will be allowed to exsist.

Consider, many manifacturing businesses, emitt deadly gas as a byproduct. Thats fine as long as you place it in the enviornment at least twenty feet in the air. So it has time to spread out and not immediately kill those below it. That stuff is a magabizillion times more dangerous then monitors(of scale) but is allowed because its a tax base.

So sir, you so far off its goofy. Its does not matter if its an albino or a morph or a cross. You will lose the rights to keeping these wonderful creatures if you do not make it of VALUE.

The KEY is, the only way to compete with imports(a strong tax base or otherwise) is with morphs, crosses and recessives. As we cannot compete with stolen from nature animals(wildcaught imports).

Ozzie small monitors can pay their way because they can support their cost. The reason is, no cheap imports. So other then the few COST EFFECTIVE small monitors, ONLY MORPHS and RECESSIVES, can pay the bills(there are always bills).

That's just too bad then. A regular old corn snake or bearded dragon is a great captive. It shouldn't have to be on the cutting edge of abberant color to have value to an owner and be treated as such. Solution: ban imported wildlife and force captive breeding. australia did it, why can't Indonesia and Africa? Is that really such a significant source of income for those poor countries? .....unfortunately yes is the answer. The other answer is deforestation and commercial agriculture which essentially wipes out the animals anyhow. so the real problem is TOO MANY HUMANS for the rest of nature to compete with. Now somebody come up with a solution to that!

I get it, your an extremist. People still keep normal corns and love them. People still keep normal beardeds and love them. In fact, far more people keep normal ones then in the past. Only now the hobby has grown and includes many areas of interest.

You do not have to partake it them. Just be happy with your normal corn or bearded.

About the rest, your a dreamer. Ain't going to happen, to much money for the old governemt. Cheers

Because morphs exsist, does not mean you have to get them. There are still normals available. You seem to be very confused. And only with yourself. If you ask me, you appear to want the morphs, but are to afraid to pay the money to get them. So you blast them.

If that is not the case, then you should simply ignore them and purchase a normal of whatever you want. You do understand, normals are inexpensive and commonplace(thats why they are called normal), so it should not be a problem.

What I find odd is, you attack types of animals you do not want. Why???? there are lots of animals I do not want. And they are still wonderful. I just don't want them. You do understand you do not need a reason to NOT WANT SOMETHING. I really believe its that simple.

The beauty of this is, there is a wide choice of captive bred that includes normals, phases, morphs, recessives, and all manner of types. Its yours to choose from, not yours to blast.

If you think people should breed absolutely true monitors, then by all means GET WITH THE PROGRAM AND DO IT. But Please, do not be a back seat driver.

By the way, you keep ackies and kept argus???? how do you know they were not crosses. A cross is anything that would not have bred in nature. More accurately, animals from different parts of their range are the worse types of crosses, because you call them pure, when they are not. Anyone with a educated eye can tell a species or genus cross, but inter-specific crosses are nasty. Consider population specific is the only pure or strait captive breeding and that is very very very rare. Cheers

You love sticking little inflammatory remarks at people. It's become your trademark. I don't secretly want morphs and can't afford them. I just wish regular savannahs and the like were kept like people care about their lives. The disposable pet bugs me. You don't "trade up" or "advance" to other monitors like it's the belts in Karate. It's a life and should be respected regardless of dollar value. When people put huge values on the abberant, you now get "normals" binned up and sold cheap like a produce stand. This urks me. Uro's and "overstock" normal beardies in a sweater bin piled up on one another and covered in feces. One is dying in the corner and being stepped on. Beardies were once highly coveted and well cared for. I am not in the "industry" of reptiles. I don't like what i am seeing w/ reptiles as the years pass. I am urked at the treatment of "inexpensive" animals. I guess i am EXTREMELY urked by this. But it is fueled by the "next new thing" craze IMO. Hey guys, i just got a lot of semiremex in and i'm selling off my collection to delve into these guys (what is the fate of those sell offs?). I am not implying you are this way either. But I'm not going to change my opinion about how i see common reptiles kept as a result of the new/different stuff because guess i have a "wall" around me.

That is the only reason(thats reasonable) That my pea brain can think. If I am wrong and I very well could be as I really could give a frog(do they have morphs too) So, why you would attack something that causes you no harm. You have all the options you seem to want. Yet you attack other areas of captive reptile keeping. why?

If I am wrong at my guess, then what reason do you have? We have gone over the basics, you don't like them, great, no problem. You don't like others liking them(by buying them and supporting them) again fine.

You want people to like normals, In fact many do. You want people to breed normals, in fact many do. So whats the problem?

I repeat, no one is bending your arm to keep anything you do not want or like.

You talk about others breeding this and that(stuff you do not like) so why aren't you breeding what you like? Not going to do, but actually doing?

About what I am famous for, Hmmmmmm, I am famous for doing it. I do what I talk about. I do not talk and talk about stuff I do not do. I know, thats hard for others to swallow. So a little jab for them, to bad.

There are many old sayings about this particular subject. You know, walk the walk, before you talk the talk, etc.

The truth is, I would enjoy seeing you do well with any species or morph you like. The reason is, it takes the same work and the same understanding to do morphs and crosses as it does a species.

Which boils down(study last paragraph) if it takes the same work and the animals are exactly the same, except for color and pattern. And normals that take the same work and understanding are worth $1.00 and morphs and such are worth more($10) Then I would think after a while of working on normals, a SANE person would want to recieve more for his efforts(remember they are the same) In fact, I would think that is the american way(to become upwardly mobile)hahahahahahahahahaha.

I do understand, some morphs are pretty, that gives reason for value, but man some of those corn morphs and ball morphs are behind end ugly. But hey, those folks are having a ball(no pun intented) If they are happy, then I am happy. After all, we are all brothers in herp keeping. And all these morphs have no adverse impact on nature(not wild caught) How good does it get. Even if I do think some are ugly. Some crosses are ugly too, some aren't. If they are ugly(color, pattern or behavior) then I do not continue keeping them. I keep what I like, so should you. Cheers

IF you read my posts again, the only "attack" was some sarcasm about piebald x caramel BPs or something being $15,000. I never attacked anything other than some erroneous science claims.

I have bred Argus. One whopping illustrious time. This makes me a demigod,not a regular God, but a demigod,lol. I had a female 3 years ago that starting clutching almost monthly. I got a male. Both strange adults who got together fine, too. I hatched out 4/5 eggs. On an ensuing clutch, the female retained an egg that caused a ruptured oviduct and subsequent infection....surgery....3 months later she passed. My piss-poor nesting very likely caused her to hold back the egg(s). It really upset me and i chose not to get another female until recently i started to look again. I have 2/4 offspring raised up now that turned out to be males. You know about my Ackies. So that is where i am. I am a yellow belt.

I am just sticking up for the "little guy" who is the plain jane normal b/c i see a lot of them succumbing to lack of attention. So I'll drop all this BS and lets go on discussing lizards w/o animosity. Peace. -Krusty

These jabs you speak of are a method I use with husbandry. I use them for discovering what monitors really are, and it seems to work for people. My guess is, behavior is behavior, it crosses lots of borders.

When I work with monitors(people assume I am a 7th degree black belt) People think I know what I am doing. They think I know know this and that and it always works. The good part is, monitors are behavioral, you know, what we are displaying here. With behavior, there is are too many twists and turns to think that
(A) will always work with (B). One of the few things I know is, in order to test behavior, you try things and see the reaction.

I do not ever know if those jabs are accurate or not. They may be or not. So I throw them out and see what kind of reaction they cause. If they are accurate, there is a particular assoiated behavorial responce. If they are not accurate the response is normally small or ignored. Maybe, something like, your wrong FR, this is the problem, or what the heck are you talking about.

Its called searching. This approach is very important with monitors. As not all individuals react the same to our husbandry. As you have seen each individual female has her own nesting needs. I do not assume they all want the same, they do not. So I do not offer all females the same. I jab at them and see how they respond. In boxing, I assume you have a some understanding of that. To jab is fairly ineffective unless you use the jab a lot. Multiple jabs are more effective then a single jab here and there. Also timely jabs are more effective then jabbing for no reason. This again is good with husbandry. Its not about what I know about monitors that keeps me allowing them to be successful, its knowing when to jab. The jab sets up other more important manuvers. To take this back to our thread, yes, I jab at people, the reason is to find out what they are made of and what they are really saying. If they take it personal, then it most likely means it was an effective jab.

Now consider and this is very important, your original post was not about monitors or the keeping and breeding of them. It was merely your own personal likes and dislikes and more importantly prejudices based on lack of knowledge or experience.(i believe if you experienced some croses or morphs you would not feel the same)

If I am to respond to your prejudices(nothing wrong with having some) I have to find out what those prejudices are. In this case, you have some about Value and high prices assoiated with morphs and such. It took some jabbing to find this out.

So in all the writing I have done with you, I have only said one or two important things, so I will add another. Human behavior, ITs common human behavior to improve, or upgrade. So those folks who ACTUALLY are successful and breed normals, often keep the oddballs or the exceptional individuals that hatch out(or born) They do so, not because of value, they do so because of boredom. Please consider, if you were highly successful with your argus and were so for many years, you yourself would become tired of keeping normal looking babies, and would without question keep ones that are different. The yellow ones, the banded ones, the patternless ones. You would keep anything that did not look the same. That is human nature. And that is how the whole morph and cross thing came about. All the original types were created or developed by longtime successful keepers. Of course, they did not know or understand what there would be a keen demand for such things. But they(we) should have, simply because its human behavior to want something different.

Now to take it back to monitors, its varanid behavior to want something different. They are one of the few reptiles that if kept in the same conditions for long periods, stagnate out. They need behavioral changes to survive. I take that back, most reptiles want that, its just that with monitors its critically important.

So why don't you try some jabs, Try changing half of your ackies cage and see what the effect is. I say half, because they still need some stability. You will find that no matter how you change it, they will like it. As long as they have their base, all these changes will be used. Ok, water would be bad. hahahahahahaha

Now heres the funny part. One time you can add trees, they will climb and inspect every inch and use whats good for them. The next time try a pile of dirt, again the same will happen, they will inspect and see if its usable or not. Then boards, then rocks, then a dead fish, really! they will love it(don't leave it too long.

If you again study that last paragraph, you will see that I included what some people call aboreal and what people call terrestrial. The thing is, ackies are burrowers, but they use trees, Hmmmmmmmmmmmm they will teach you to not use those terms and give them what they like(all such nonsense) They will teach you, its not important what WE call this stuff, trees aboreal or dirt terrestrial, its only important what they call that stuff.

That is why I recomend ackies. They are bold enough to TELL you what all monitors are like and they are small so you can and will actually do it. With a wonderful species like argus, its would be a TON of work(literally)

So yes, jabbing is good, you learn a lot. Cheers

I do keep argus and ackies for those very reasons - they are very outwardly readable and hardy. They come out and inspect things in your presence. the ackies climb up limbs in search of that big roach or cricket up on a branch. I recently added that coconut fiber brick thing after soaking it in a bucket to my ackies cage. i placed a heap of it in the corner and under a rock cave. they dug it out and inspected it. now they have left it alone ? the novelty wore off. Argus are great. They just require magnified enclosures and food and a quick hand at feeding time. Still my #1 monitor and likely always will be....yes, even over ackies. Oh, i didn't start this thread by the way. I don't even remember who did. ?BAZ?

I didn't say you did, you and Shay just made anti-morph cross comments. But we have cleaned that plate.

I agree with you, argus are magnificent. My problem is, I cannot have just one. I normally like groups and that leads to several groups. Surely you understand what several groups of large adult argus would be like, hahahahahahaha. So I keep crosses,goulds, flavis, same same, but smaller and nicer. The smaller part is key.

To breed monitors you have to feed them. If you feed argus, they get BIG. Like commonly five foot and larger. At times I think I should keep one giant male. Then the thought passes.

Anyway thanks for the conversation and you do understand it was not directly to or all about you. When your on the internet, these threads are read my many many people(lurkers) its to/for them as well. Cheers

Oh yeah, no hard feelings here. I'm made of leather and rebar. -Krusty

Amen to all that...damm gov. >_< we would be in stone age without them but...damm them still >_< Im like so eager to get my BT monitor to a lonely park for it to get more freedom other than his room...but then again Gov. would look badly at this.
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1.0.0 Cat (Garfield)
2.2.0 RES (Bowser, Angela, Leo, April)
1.0.0 V. Albigularis (Godzilla)
1.0.0 Z. Quadrilineatus (Yago)
1.0.0 Python Regius (Kaa)
1.0.0 Lampropeltis Triangulum Cambelli (Spawn)
0.0.1 Pandinus Imperator (Hidan)
0.0.1 Morelia Spilota Variegata (Giovanni)
Sheriyar Bokhari