Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i posted a while ago about my term paper about varanid hunting habits and how they compare to feline hunting habits and other lizard hunting habits... unfortunately there is not enough information (10-15 primary (scientific studies) sources minimum).
so now i am writing to ask you guys what you think an interesting varanid research topic might be (if you have another interesting reptilian topic that would also help me) that would yield a decent amount of results. it needs to be a relatively specific topic, the example the prof gave in class was "how does a chameleon use his tongue to hunt." it would also be interesting to see what you guys have to say. if the paper ends up being varanid related i can post it on here for you guys b/c i guarantee it will be interesting.
p.s. you guys may wanna check out the following link, Eric Pianka has done a lot of research on varanids, this is his website it has his published papers as well.
http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~varanus/research.html
thanks a lot y'all,
-jake
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"I live for the nights I'll never remember with the friends I will never forget"

Jake I am a little confused by your request, the reason why is that iv been keeping varanids of different species for many years, and every day of those years iv learned something new. Theirs so much to study when it comes to varanids the question is where to start?

Do you want to study captive behaviours or wild behaviours? If hunting is your main interest, then captives will only teach you the basics, don’t forget theirs 60 species and all have different preys and evolve in equally variable biotopes, studying there hunting technique might me a life commitment.

Maybe focusing on one or a few species may help you focus on interesting behaviours? Other then hunting, prey recognition could be worth studying? Some varanids will take snakes while others will run from them.

Speaking of this, I saw a nil monitor preying on an African rock python today on you tube, have you seen it?

The video shows a medium nil jumping of a rock into a river to hunt down a small python, after some time the nil ends up drowned and the snake swims away, hahaha

Of course this was a set up, no wild nil would do such a thing, but to the untrained eye this was for real.

i think you were a litte confused. i'm writing a paper based on at least 10 or 15 studies already conducted, preferably on monitors, regarding what interests me the most about monitors; their intelligence/behaviour. i think their intelligence, especially in the wild is best examplified when they hunt since they will often cut straight to the nearest escape route for the prey instead of giving chase and wasting energy and possibly time. unfortunately, i am not conducting a study... that will happen in about a year. thanks though,
-jake
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"I live for the nights I'll never remember with the friends I will never forget"

Hello Dyno,
I don't think he was confused at all- and he is definitely right about dedicating a lifes worth of time - and you still probably won't discover it all... But, for you assignment, I would suggest researching Komodo Dragons and applying your assignment to them if you can narrow it. There is alot of information written about them(most is garbage) and you will have enough info to "eat the fish and spit out the bone"... Besides, your teacher won't know what's right or wrong info anyway, most of us don't... Best to you- Mike

i guess i'll stick to husbandry issues here, especially because i don't believe you can learn the ecology of any species in a cage outside of the environment it evolved in. my assignment is whatever topic i choose, i just thought you guys might come up with some interesting ones being that you probably like monitors as much as me. additionally this is not high school and this is a herpetology course tought by a professor that has written a fair amount of publications, even the TA's knew to tell me what ecologists wrote the most relevant papers to my topic. so, im sorry to say this, but when writing an upper division term paper for a herpetology course tought by a herpetologist in a reveered veterniary school, i'm sure he knows all the correct and relevant information. sorry this mnighta been harsh, but your tone seemed like you thought me to be some high school moron trying to get last minute help on a meaningless paper. i've certainly accomplished more than that and don't like being treated like a moron.
-jake
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"I live for the nights I'll never remember with the friends I will never forget"

First of all, I will be equally as harsh as you; your paper most likely will be meaningless. Sorry. That's what you do in school, at all levels. The purpose of your paper is to teach you how to read primary literature. That is all. If you are not conducting research, you are not presenting any new information. If you were writing a review article or book chapter, then the purpose would be to save people from having to read the primary literature. Other then that, the most meaningful thing that your paper will provide is a list of useful references, assuming you do a good job.

As for topics, if you want to try to present something new, I would suggest doing an analysis of existing data presented in other publications. For instance, you could compile all of the data on varanid diets and then look for patterns that might lead to some new conclusions. You could look at the effect of previously unexamined variables, like climate or size, etc. You might even contact the researchers and ask for unpublished raw data. Unfortunately, all of this will probably not work. I doubt that there is enough raw data to come up with anything meaningful.

So in the end, you will probably have to resign yourself to picking a popular topic with lots of publications and then reword and regurgitate what has already been said. Sorry. That is college.

And yes sadly, MOST work with varanids is exactly that, reworked old information. Then reworked over, mostly without any research that has repeatable results. Cheers

I have an idea. get Spraklings (sp) book and re write it with the correct info.

Scott
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Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

what you said about diet is actually pretty interesting, but after 2 full days of research i actually think i have more than enough for my original parameters. sorry i kinda went off, but i really do appreciate the input. the previous input just kind of agrevated me cuz it wasn't helpful and neither was most of the information out there. you're right about the paper being simply a teaching tool, but i actually like research papers cuz they're interesting. i was hoping for some constructive peer input and didn't feel i got it. thanks though, luckily i'm gonna be able to write this. i'l still post it if you guys want to read it. interestingly in order to determine dinosaur hunting patterns scientists tend to look at mammals and varanids, teiids somewhat as well. found out a lot of interesting stuff in my research.
-jake

>>First of all, I will be equally as harsh as you; your paper most likely will be meaningless. Sorry. That's what you do in school, at all levels. The purpose of your paper is to teach you how to read primary literature. That is all. If you are not conducting research, you are not presenting any new information. If you were writing a review article or book chapter, then the purpose would be to save people from having to read the primary literature. Other then that, the most meaningful thing that your paper will provide is a list of useful references, assuming you do a good job.
>>
>>As for topics, if you want to try to present something new, I would suggest doing an analysis of existing data presented in other publications. For instance, you could compile all of the data on varanid diets and then look for patterns that might lead to some new conclusions. You could look at the effect of previously unexamined variables, like climate or size, etc. You might even contact the researchers and ask for unpublished raw data. Unfortunately, all of this will probably not work. I doubt that there is enough raw data to come up with anything meaningful.
>>
>>So in the end, you will probably have to resign yourself to picking a popular topic with lots of publications and then reword and regurgitate what has already been said. Sorry. That is college.
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"I live for the nights I'll never remember with the friends I will never forget"

trying to figure what your asking.

If your asking for 15 papers on one subject like varanid hunting stradegies, I do not think your going to find that. In fact, I do not think your going to find 15 papers on any area of varanids, captive or otherwise.

There are very few people working on monitors, NO FUNDING.

So as Mike suggested, KD's may have the most papers done by the most different authors.

So, I think your task is to drum up as many varanids citings as possible and pick for yourself. I imagine you can do this on the interent. Cheers

actually there is a lot of information out there. eric pianka himself has written dozens maybe more publications on varanids. a few other names seemed to pop up, but pianka has been doing that since the 60's. i did have to pick a lot more sources than necessary to pick stuff out here and there, but i am plenty confident i can write my original topic. if you have access to the california library of journals (you need a username/password that costs money unless you're a student) search stuff, there are a lot of interesting papers you might enjoy. jstor.com seemed to have the most/best info (HUUUUUUUUUUGE database)
-jake
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"I live for the nights I'll never remember with the friends I will never forget"

I already understand all that, your question was(or was it?) 10 to 15 papers on one subject(like hunting). That is what you will not find. Cheers