Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello,
I have been working recently with an indoor group of monitors as well as an outdoor group and am currently working on an indoor/outdoor group(still under construction). After I worked out some of the initial "kinks"(fire ants are horrific here in FL) and accepted my losses (monetary not lives)with my outside group(there are so many issues with outdoors, flooding, etc.), I have made some neat observations. First and foremost, I think if I spend any more money at Home Depot this month , Mary will shoot me. Second, my indoor group use their basking sites day and night but my outdoor group does as well(my outdoor pens have 24hour basking sites as well). Even after using the sun all day, they still use the basking sites all night long(boy do they eat like tigers(or I guess like monitors) too). Of course they spend the majority of time in their burrows and hides, but, I just thought that this was neat that even the outdoor animals on a natural sunlight and sunset cycle will use and adopt a secondary heat source when it is available. Now my question to you Frank, or any others reading, is, has anyone noticed or documented this behavior in the wild? I know that it is common with other herps like rat snakes but with monitors? Thanks ahead, and best to you all- Mike

Yes. I had a conversation on another forum with a guy from Perth who was up doing research of some type in the northern part of Western Australia. He shot pics of V. panoptes rubidus in the middle of the night rummaging around in the rocks for hours. The pics were stunning. He was alarmed in his tent by the commotion and was shocked as well by them being so active at night.

Personally, i rarely experience my monitors out at night (one episode recently) despite a single bask left on evenings. They tend to go under based on the outside dusk and not by my lighting / heating schedule at all. Once in a blue moon they do stuff in the dark by my observations.

A couple of things. V.p.rudibus, occurs from just north of Pt. Headland, south to somewhere just south of the Hammerslys, Parapardo, etc. Just north of the DeGrey river is where these two could possibly meet. I have seen rudibus there, and V.p.p at Sandfire flats. (about sixty miles apart or so)

A better description would be central west, So its not from northern W.A. That would be V.p.p. or V.gouldi.

I have seen five species active at night in W.A. including ackies(crossing the road)

Also, I will hear the lacies ratting around at night, in their outdoor cages(no additional lighting) It turns out to be females(gravid) hunting for mice that hid in the day.

Another thing I learned was, geckos are often active in the day. But only rarely out in the sun. Yes, I have seen many species of gecko bask in the sun too.

I believe the actual learning occurs when you learn that terms such as nocturnal or diurnal are a casual guide to understanding the behaviors of reptiles, not a hard fast rule. They are not meant to misguide you or to tell an animal what it should do. These terms are suppose to be of help. They are not meant for you to believe a term over an actual event the REAL animal does. For most, this is a real hard lesson to learn and many of the teachers have failed to learn it as well. Cheers

Hi Mike, nice post, And yes, outdoor cages are a money pit. We too have fire ants, ours rarely bother the lizards, but quickly and efficiently consume their eggs. The ants will also consume any insects(crickets) and dead rodents left in the cage. And do so very quickly. And yes, flooding is a giant concern. But we have excess heat and cold to deal with as well. Our low this winter was 14F and our high last summer was a mere 114F, (record high is 116F here in tucson) We also have extreme dryness and of course the monsoon season, with some real short term horrifying conditions. Like extreme humidity. The day it hit 116F it rained. Hmmmmmmmmmm 116F and humid. Yes, outdoors is not for the weak at heart and for those with shallow pocket books. Or a good Home depot card. My guess is, I have spent around 150 grand at home depot(I should be part owner by now)

Back to your question, In those early articules(Goannaman speaks) I told of a story of my wife and I, in the mountains in mexico. A Pacific hurricane hit and we holed up in a ramada used for cattle roundups. It had a tin roof, tin sides, and a rock stove. It was cold as heck(for us) So we made a nice fire and hung out in the ramada. My wife put her feet up close to the fire, her shoes were wet and cold. Well the dang things melted on her feet. OK, back to reptiles, I was sitting there trying to keep warm and I noticed that Yarrows spinys(a montane spiny lizard) were basking by the fire. I looked at them and thought, they are diural and its deep into the night. Which by the way, has very little to do with lizards and lizard keeping, except to confuse the people. As the lizards knew what they were doing and so DID I. They like us, were cold and they like us got warm by the fire.

Also I mentioned so very long ago. That in my first attempts at breeding ackies(91) I went all stupid and did things all natural. To a point most here could not concieve of. I built a 20 by 20 by 10 high outdoor cage. I have said that many times. But I did other things too. I used a blacklite fan trap to attract insects and blow them into the cage at night. My hope was the monitors would have plenty of moths and such to feed upon. Odatrias do love moths. I also fed the ackies local lizards. Well actually local lizards were also in the cage and if the ackies wanted to, they would eat them. OK, again back to the point. The Blacklite trap worked great, EXCEPT, the local lizards got up at night and ate the bugs and moths AS THEY WERE BLOWN INTO THE CAGE. Which left the stupid monitors to nothing by mourning.

What did I learn, I learned that lizards do not need me to tell them what they are. They are, what they are. They are not restricted by what I or science calls or tells them. I also learned that Odatriads really like eating little fat lizards. And that ackies were very very inventive about catching lizards.

Kimberlys are designed to catch lizards and do so with extreme speed and design. Ackies(slow and fat) do so with extreme intelligence. They simply did not chase the lizards. Soon the prey did not run the lizards became use to them. Then the ackies would simply reach over and eat them. Ackies also "know" how to dig lizards out of burrows. Such speedy species as Whiptails, could not be caught by ambush or chase. But they could be dug out of burrows. Funny thing, they did that at night.

Mike, this was done a very long time ago, and was published a long time ago as well.

The point is this, "mindset" if you get stuck in a mindset of knowledge. Your a gonner. You cannot go in being prejudiced as to what your looking at. I like you, believed in that the monitors did and do, I did/do not have to understand it. I just go along for the ride(a bystander). Its been a great ride. Most including academics, confuse the horse with the cart. We keepers and academics are not the horse, the monitors are, we are IN THE CART. Heck, we are not even the cart. History has proven that science and their definitions are for science and not for the animals.

I did what your doing, the results are what I do today. The problem is, it did not line up with what folks "thought" they knew about monitors. Keep in mind, I WAS one of those folks. But I am not so egotistical that I have to be right. I am more like a Cham, I will quickly change to what the monitors say they are. If the monitors are right, then so am I, if they are wrong, then so am I. Hmmmmmmmmm Funny thing is, monitors cannot be wrong about themselves.

To me, I cannot believe people are as dumb(naive, uneducated, etc) as they are. And boy they are. If you take your heat gun and run amoung with it. You will learn one thing. There are no consistant temps in nature. For instance, If you have a daytime high of 85F, you will have a very very hard time finding 85F. You will find much higher, much lower, heck everything but that stinking 85F. Then at night its the same, say it goes to 65F, at that time you will have a hard time finding 65F, you will again find much higher and a little lower. Nature is not what most city folks think it is. Everything has a different temp because all these things are exposed to different condtions. Sun angle, sun exposure, moisture content, or lack of moisture. What is funny is, THESE animals lifes are spent taking advantage of these very things. And it has very little to do with what Mr. Science thinks of them.

With all the problems have with understanding these simple concepts, I think it boils down to a couple of mindsets. Of course first and foremost is, us humans are smart and these animals are dumb(the reality is quite the opposite) I believe its a major lack of faith. No matter how smart you are, you are not smarter then a monitor being a monitor. Your only a alien making guesses. You have to have faith that monitors are right. Not faith that you or science or something published on the internet or a commerical rag(magazine) is right. Dude, the animals are always right, even in death, we just do not understand them.

Mike if you keep it up and have faith in the animals, you going to have a ball, you will keep learning for decades. I am going on my 18th year of successfully doing this and I am now barely gaining some faith in myself.

My key to success is not what I know, Its all about asking the monitors what they are, not telling them what they are. So far our science boys, cannot grasp that simple concept either. One last point, asking the monitors what they are is easier and more fun then telling them what they are. Cheers

Grate post Frank!

I remember very well this story from Vivarium, nice to hear it again.

Also may I add, from day one you have been faithful to your statements, no one can fault you on this.

Many thanks!
Rgds

Hello Frank,
Absolutely remarkable contribution, this post, and all that you have done for monitors and science. I hope you don't think that I am rude... I am just slow(read things 6-10 times)but things stay upstairs when I'm done scanning them. Again, thank you for what you have done for my lizards and my understanding(for the education). Best to you- Mike

Heck no, I don't think your rude. In fact, its wonderful what your doing. I love to see others results. Specially attempting the same sort of things I did/do, but in different parts of the country or with a different twist.

Its those that say stuff, without ever trying it the get under my skin. Once some freak in a chat room said, I tried what you do and it didn't work. Man, I laughted so hard I popped a part. First off, he never seen what I do, so how on earth could he say, he copied what I do. Secondly, he failed miserably, so it did not copy me very well, as I have lots of success, oh I do hit bumps now and again, but I have no problems breeding monitors.

What thing thats really really missing with varanids is, methods gained thru success. Most methods in the past were based from failure. The same with field work. They base much on what wrote from what they did not actually SEE. So it becomes information from lack of results. For instance, some papers perdict how they breed without ever seeing them breed, how they act, without seeing them behave, how they nest, without seeing them nest. Etc, etc. Thats not information, thats lack of information. To me its very simple, if you are in the field and writing about reproduction, you should be seeing lots of reproduction. Not seeing a lizard on a branch ten thousand times. As that is not reproduction.

So yea, I love what your doing. Cheers

We have been playing around with outdoor cages here...Being in north central Texas it gets pretty hot & humid during the summer, and often below freezing in the winter. So some animals are moving outside during spring/summer then back inside during the winter (hope to work on converting or sealing up the outdoor cages at some point so they can be converted & heated in the winter, so we don't have to move animals around).

While I am an ok carpenter, I suck as an electrician - so I am curious if you guys might share some pix or info on how to safety setup outside heat lamps / heat sources on outdoor cages - I don't want to start an electrical fire and burn the place down!

Thanks

Hi Ruston, I think liting/heating, is very much related to the overall design of the cage.

In my case, I use the exact same methods indoors and out. I use outdoor lite fixtures, and in some cases, I use a wire guard.

In the above pic, I have the top off to dig up eggs. I used this pic as it shows the litebar and lite fixture.

This pic shows the wire guard, the male thinks its funny to tail whip the lites.

I have used this type setup in outdoor cages up to 6 ft. tall. I use two 65Watt bulbs. These cages successfully experienced temps as low as 14F last winter.

The monitors MUST be educated in order to have this work. Educated means, the monitors must be IN the cages long before extremes in temps occur, if not, you will have some dead monitors. Cheers