Reptile & Amphibian Forums

What crosses do we have out there so far with monitor lizards?

Baz
I have crossed Prasinus and Beccari, a friend of mine breeds Melinus and Indicus, now his crosses are breeding.
Then there is the Flavie Argus cross, Pillbara x Glauerti, Gilleni x Caudolineatus and way back when a claim of a cross between Salvator and Salvadori.

There used to be a website call Varanus photo album, but was re-done and lots of great photos disappeared!

Cross breeding is frowned upon in most Varanid circles.
I crossed mine because at the time I had no female Prasinus.

Mike

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Mike's Monitors!

Hey Mike, any pics of the melinus/indicus cross?
And sorry bout the Photo Album, I got out of the hobby for a long time and kingsnake or whoever had their way with it.

Brian
Good to hear from you again, I trust your schooling is going well.
The photo album has seen much better days.
I will get some photos of the cross one day.
Mike
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Mike's Monitors!

Those listed and many more. As a few examples, a young fella here crossed a sav to a argus. They produced three or four clutches. Most eggs died in incubation, as this was new to this fella. He did manage to hatch a few(better then most here, hybrids or otherwise). The offspring were identical to argus(the female) from the pics he showed on the internet. The key is, they were raised together from immature and had never been with other monitors. So was it a cross or a parthno breeding? As parthno is still theory in monitors, its a cross until proven otherwise. As in, raised from babies, bred, nested, produced several clutches of fertile eggs. Consider, the young man went off to school and left his younger brother to hatch them. The rest could have appeared to be hybrids as there was only one or two that survived.

Also, gouldi/argus, flavi/argus, flavi/gouldi, and combinations of all three. Plus more.

Also there have been many indicus type crosses, but unfortunately most were done when they were the same animals and not different animals. That is, they were bred as a generic species(a bunch of different species called one species) then later seperated into lots of different species. Which then makes those past breedings hybrids. An example, as a kid, I worked in a petshop, I kept a cage with all the gophersnakes in it, pines, bulls, gophers, etc. They all bred eachother and produced all sorts of crosses. At the time, they were the same species and different subspecies, now they are different species. So they turned from intergrades to hybrids.

This will add more crosses like different ackies, when and if(most likely will occur in the future) get named to different species.

The sad part is, people are so bad at keeping monitors, they cannot even breed normals muchless crosses. Consider, all it takes to breed monitors is a healthy pair. How sad is that? Cheers

Yes it is sad.... my point exactly as i stated earlier in this thread. At christmas, a lone Komodo female produced viable eggs that i believe hatched. It was in the papers. I was calling it the immaculate conception in honor of Jesus Christ. This was believed to be parthenogenetic, of course. I have heard of another incident of this (? in Argus), but it is likely extremely rare. I think Mark Bayless had spoke of it, can't remember.

FR, did you say someone hatched out Argus x Savannah? That i would have to see to believe. They are not very close on the tree and one would assume the offspring would have some characteristics visible of both species. Do you have a name or pictures of that? That would flat out amaze me.

I guess what makes someone sad, makes others happy. I think its very interesting that different species(???????) cross.

What I find odd, and boy I always find stuff odd. Is why do you believe with your heart and soul that species discriptions are anything remotely accurate.

No offense, but most are pretty much randomly made by looks and location(this is really really true). No more and no less. You may want to read some keys and see it they make any sense to you. For instance, Varanus beriji(sp) The key says its exactly like V.acanthurus, but a different color.(may we have a group laugh) But hey, there are all kinds of different colored ackies. Hmmmmmmmm. Or V.kingorum. Hmmmmmmmmm read and giggle.

The lines that define species are for mans use and it appears not acceptable by the animals themselves. As they keep on breaking these rules. One old rule states different species are suppose to be different enough as to not be able to reproduce. Hmmmmmmmmmm wrong again old wise men. As animals have little problem with this(except a horse and a donkey) which are both manmade items(line bred to exhibit valuable characteristics) Hey did you read that Chimps were hunting with spears, hahahahahahahahaha I guess they are little men.

The point is, you read something and believe it, that makes you somewhat foolish. Try reading stuff and keeping in mind to be verified thru actual application. Don't even judge it as right or wrong.

My bet is, all these things we call species now, WILL BE REWRITTEN and will not be the same in the future. So what does that make them now. In fact, they were not the same in the past, but yet, it was still the very exact same animals. Only their names change. How stinking funny is that.

That person you mentioned kept saying different species of varanids COULD NOT REPRODUCE, because they had different dingalings(hemipene) Well that did not stop them. Cheers

My feeling is, those that read these things and believe them over the actual animals or in spite of the actual animals, or without knowledge of the actual animals. Really only NEED something to believe. Try believing something else. Cheers

OK. I see where you are coming from. You want the glass to be half full until proven half empty. I can work with that. And i dont read something and take it as fact. You allude to that often. I don't say the tooth fairy is real until proven false, so i guess i'm not THAT open minded, but i hope i am somewhat open to different thought processes. I need something concrete to start with before i start changing "the standard" (oh God!!, standards/rules to begin a study!) on a whim.

If you are going to accept that a "species" is in fact some classifiable thing, you have to have some sort of a definition for this. Otherwise you have a mumbo-jumbo loose grouping w/ grey areas as your definition - and you renounce the term "species" altogether. I DO AGREE that species are ever changing and being redefined as the V. baritji example you stated. But back in the 1800s or whatever when Brits were seeing lizards in the field, they put terms on them. Baritji do look superficially like acanthurus at first glance and i believe their terrrains overlap a bit, but whatever. Hell, i coudn't tell a Nile from a Water monitor 12 years ago. Who am i to judge some explorers dehydrating in the outback/upper peninsula back 200 years ago. At least they tried and got something started.

Lets try to define a species. Others jump in on this b/c i haven't had basic biology in 12 years. But from what i recall, the original working formula was that two distinct animals cannot breed and produce VIABLE offspring (there's your sterile mule- but where were original horses from? how about donkeys? How did they get together?).

That definition was short-sighted b/c it left out the fact that geographic isolation can cause variation in what was once one "species" to possibly two. If you up and move the two animals in proximity of one another (unnatural as it takes a human flying them in a plane over a mountain, or a ship across an insurmountable body of water, blah, blah, blah...) and they CAN, in fact, produce viable offspring - are they now the same? subspecies? different species because they outwardly look different now? kind of a grey area, heh?

So due to morphology, osteology, geographic isolation,etc. you have a working formula to try to understand the diversity of a group of lizards. Then comes DNA/RNA/ mitochondrial DNA comparisons. Usually quite similar to the tree we drew up based on the prior stuff.

So i guess my rant is - do you renounce species categorizations altogether b/c in an UNNATURAL circumstance of putting two different lizards in a box, they can make viable offspring? Human intervention throws a monkey wrench into the equation b/c we don't take into account OUR influence on our own stinking defintions (mule).

Anyway, what do you have regarding the Argus x Sav cross possibility? I would still be just amazed if that were true. I'm not closing my eyes to the possibility, but i'd need more than some dude said it once, you know? THAT would be foolish of me, yes. -Krusty

Several things, First the argus Sav cross occurred here on KS, it was witnessed by many of us over several years. After the hatchlings died, they were preserved(as best they could) and were suppose to be sent to Daniel Bennett.

What actually occured is as fact as anything else. In fact, its more fact that the facts that the academics give us. They repeatedly tell me monitors do not multiclutch, yet everybody that breeds them, cannot stop them from doing so. And in fact, literature if full of this occurance all over the world. Yet, it does not occur.

About Whites monitor, named after this White fella, and not by the english in the long distant past. Baritji is the aboridgial name for "White" Or so i was told. This monitor occurs for over a very large area, from the gulf of carpenteria to the middle of the Kimberly region. And from the timor sea to the Great Simpson desert. Its a form of ackie like any other form of ackie. Its habitat is no different then many of the others. I know, because I have seen lots of them from all over their range. Of note, even in the darwin area, they vary from range to range. This form does inhabit rocky ranges.

All over the range of V.acanthurus, there are populations that inhabit flatlands and populations that inhabit rocky ranges. Over the entire nine yards. So to name one morph is rather naive, especially since, no one researched it(a common problem)

About DNA, its not worth the ink to write it, AT THE MOMENT. and it will not be for some period of time. The reason is, no one will settle on a consistant gene to work with. Every researcher uses a gene of his/her choosing. Which makes comparative studies non exsistant.

Then consider, recently its been discovered that genes are related and effected by eachother. Which means disecting a gene out of a chain, is not accurate, as they are effectively part of the gene next to it. Or so I read.

You do know that when choosing a gene, you have to choose a fast changing gene as opposed to a strong gene that does not change quickly. The problem is, that is very arbitrary.

Consider, genes that control color and pattern are very quick changing and loose. Genes that control scalation are not as fast, but still much faster then the genes that control the bones. Get it. Ok, neither do I.

I actually can give a hoot about that, the reason is simple. What came first the horse or the cart, the chicken or the eggs, etc.

I am not interested in the genes, I am interested in the behavior. Behavioral adaption drives physical adaption(egg, chicken) Also behavior is realtime, it has to occur or you will not know its there. So why did the first tree monitor climb a tree and continue to climb trees, or what it the other way around.

Which leads back to the subject. Why would different species interbreed? You do know that goulds and flavis and panoptes are similar, of course you do, but do you know they occur in the exact same place and do not interbreed. I know of two such places. There are many places where two of the three occur together. And Yes I know the books say they are different and such and forth. But thats wrong, they occur in the exact same place PERIOD. as in, not utilizing different parts of the habitat, the same parts.

So why did they cross in captivity, I know, I know, but no one will ask me.

There are many such behavioral wonders in nature, so very surprising. For instance, in the dead center(you know what that is, don't you?) there are perenties, they normally inhabit rocky ranges. Then such things as flavis and goulds occur in the flats. With perenties moving down to comsume whatever it can.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the forum. In the west, V.panoptes rubidus rules the rocky ranges and perenties rule the flats, hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm behavior is such an odd thing. I wonder why????

Also many of the rock monitors do not like rocks, how funny is that. Oh on occasion, they will use them, but its peripheral.

About the cup half full, no thats not it, its a different cup. Cheers

I hope you are discussing this and not pissed at me. Your tone is borderline if i'm reading into it correctly. I am just pointing out that human intervention leading to cross breeding isn't natural by definition. I am aware of the geography of australia and the red/dead center, the uluru rock, baritji means white in aborigine ... that is a tangent to the topic at hand. I am also aware of the gouldii complex and such. The perentie vs. rubidus thing and switching of habitat preference.... never heard that, don't know. That's interesting. Document it if you have seen it.

Genes mutate at a fairly consistent frequency, though. Fast growing animals/cells have more mutations just based on the fact that mitosis is occurring quickly and often (mouse tumors,ex). The problem is that a slight variation in color is questionably detrimental (barring extremes like an albino alligator is a gonner to a hawk or osprey), but a bone/orthopedic abnormality usually means death (can't get away from predators or too slow to catch food). So you tend to see living animals w/ the nondetrimental or even advantageous changes.

Who (academics?) is stating monitor lizards can't fire off multiple clutches in a year? If conditions are favorable, why not? Happens in captivity all the time (not to confuse captivity with nature). Good luck spying on a monitor in the wild to find this or not. No thanks.

Why monitors will crossbreed in captivity? Female ovulates .... phermones.... similar compounds across varanidae i would assume (someone should look into that). If they are compatible organs,spermatozoa,etc sure it can occur. That's if behaviorally they will go through with it and someone yanks them into proximity with one another. Why does a poodle hump your leg? Urges??? Confusion??? Desperation??? Those urges ensure the selfish gene to keep going. The more selfish/will to propagate - the better fit.

If 2 / 3 gouldii complexes coexist (i don't know either way yes or no...i'll take your word for it or look in a book) maybe they find their own more appealing when presented with the option. I don't doubt that there are grey areas or hybridized populations, but if you've seen all this - document it in a journal, take pictures and write a paper. PROVE to the ?academics? (who are these people anyway, daniel bennet and sam sweet,etc?)your findings. I'm in no position to argue either way. If i see something i think is special or new, i always take pictures. but i'm a photo buff.

I have completely forgotten what the original topic was. I'm just ranting.

Why would I be angry? Its merely discussion. I do not serve flowers with the soup. I don't have time for that.

The truth is, your welcome to believe anything you like. But you surely cannot effect me or others from making or liking crosses or morphs. which I believe is the focus of this discussion.

Your welcome to like, believe, or do whatever you like. I will not try to change you. My overall belief is, you should do what you like. That goes for us/others too.

Folks that have the same opinion as you, often claim to have an open mind, but the reality is, its so closed its silly. you see, there are many many reasons for people to do what they do. For me, its behavior. For others, its making wild animals match whats written about them. Notice I did not say the books match the animals. For some its nice pretty pets, etc etc. All in all, no one is going to force you to keep something you do not want to keep. So why say anything bad about other areas of interest. They are merely another area of interest, maybe not for you, but for many others. Cheers

I now see you like to make your own difintions and build your own fences.

You are only walling yourself off.

About the gouldi stuff, in nature they do not because they have developed behavioral barriers. And yes they are right next to eachother in nature.

When I crossed them. It took animals that did not occur in conjuntion with other types, so they did not have behavioral barriers. I have tested this on many animals for decades now.

Enough for now. Cheers

I wish it was somehow possible to cross a Monitor with a Leopard Gecko.

Its an ackie/bearded cross. What do you think? Cheers

Frank, your classic. Cross breeding is a part of the evolutionary process. Look what its done for us!

Rollin' on the floor laughin' me a&& off!!!!!
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Don't interupt me when I'm talkin' to myself

There is a story behind this and its even funnier. I will tell you later after a few more people see it. Cheers

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