Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I posted this on the argus forum, but noone has responded. There's a beautiful 3' Female ArgusXFlavi Cross that I would love to purchase. I've been looking at monitors for a while now and this was one of the species that really interested me. What I would like to know is what size of an enclosure could comfortably house one of these beauties? What temperatures should I maintain her enclosure at? What should I use as a substrate? How active are they and do they require height in the enclosure? Thanks for your help

-matt

Hi, I've never kept a cross but have kept many argus monitors. Their caging should be similar. At three feet a 6x2x2 could work but an 8x3x3 would allow the monitor more room to do the things monitors do, making it a more interesting and comfortable captive. Temps can range from 110 basking area and the cooler side at about 80. Substrate should be something that they can dig into, they seem to like to dig and it gives them something to do and something for the keeper to watch. The are very active and as far a height I do not know if crosses tripod but argus monitors do so allow enough room for the monitor to do so if it chooses.
One final note I would recomend a very durable enclosure as I have had many wooded cages destroyed by argus monitors.
God luck
Winslow

for an extremely energetic monitor such as the one you're referring, a large cage will be needed. During the winters I house my Argus monitors in a 8x4x7 and I feel guilty for keeping them in such a small cage. 2 feet of that is dirt which is what they need because they are digging machines. The rest of the vertical space is branches, shelves and hides. If you give them something to climb, they'll climb.

your temps need to have a broad range. the cool side can be in the 70's where the hot side can be in the 100's. Your basking area should have a surface temp over 135 degrees. Mine range from 140-165. The key word in that sentence was "surface temp", not to be confused with ambient temp. This broad range of temps allows your monitor to thermoregulate himself.

here's an example of one of my cages. This one happens to be set up for juveniles. An adults cage would look much different.


cheers