Hello,
After spending close to 3 hours drinking the same cup of cold coffee and sitting before one of my monitor enclosures, one of the girls finally emerged from her burrow completely. She basked briefly and then quickly circled the enclosure out of my line of sight and returned to her burrow with her head emerged from the tunnel beneath a huge concrete slab. I threw an adult mouse into the enclosure before her and her burrow which she quickly lunged at and began to bulldog by the hind quarters. Here is where it got strange because on several occasions when she has made a long display of her food capture, she has lost half to the male that I call "the Giant"(because he has grown at twice the rate of the two girls). Well, She had clearly subdued her prey and at this point rather than simply swallowing it down, she quite litterally hung the head and front torso over the Giant's burrow not once but 16 times in between making faint sliding(head sideways on the ground) attempts at swallowing the mouse from the rear. Now, she must have circled around under the basking site at least four times, once around the enclosure and back over the burrow all while parading her kill. The Giant emerged last night but did not show himself tonight(I believe he is still satified with the 3 1/2 he ate last night-the half which was a score from a tug of war with her-also he is terrified of me). Finally,(some time went by) she dropped the mouse that was too large to be swallowed- and that she could not sever in half on her own- picked it up again by the head and while forcefully ground sliding, swallowed the mouse.

Now, this is not the first time that tug battles have occurred as they were housed initially(as babies) together, became violently territorial as juveniles and had to be seperated. But have since being reintroduced and got along. So, was she trying to offer half of her food as it appeared or was she merely being clumsy while eating?- didn't look clumsy!
Also, she "shared" half of the(her)first mouse last night but tail whipped him in the face for trying to take a lunge at the second mouse the same evening- without permission?
I guess only my monitors and Frank Retes will know ...

Any comments would be great- best to you all- Mike