Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello everyone,

I'm sure this is very naive, but I HAD to ask: does anyone here 'play' with their monitors?

I don't really mean handling, but something more general - I have seen various accounts on the internet of monitor play (well, komodo dragon play, actually); I remember one individual who was supposed to have stolen her (zoo) keeper's handkerchief and tried to have a 'tug-of-war' over it.

I myself don't have a monitor (or any kind of pet), and probably won't for a long time: rented accommodation, no money, and my lease contract specifically forbids it - so this is more out of curiosity than anything else.
Read you later! (probs tomorrow - time difference)

If you do something like that, it is purely for yourself, and one sided. Whats the use of playing tug-o-war with an animal that would never see the point, or understand, and/or benefit from it? Play is something that very very social animals do for social interaction, learning, earning dominance, communication, etc. Like a cat or a canine as babies, they play to practice or learn what skills they will need to survive later in life (ie hunting, killing). Reptiles on the other hand are born with the instinct and basic knowledge to kill, and seek food, they are not taught by their parents and or siblings. As a mammal predator that grows up making mistakes and learning, their parents (or mother)and siblings get them out of trouble, they teach them, they give them second chances. Reptiles make a mistake they may die right away, this is how they learn, their genetics just dont pass on if they make too many mistakes.

Exactly why I say this, "if you want a dog, get one, not a monitor".
My answer is no, the rest of this needed to be said before someone asks "why dont you play with them, they are intelligent animals".

Hello Shvar, FR & Rob,

Play is out of the question, but Shvar brought up another aspect- learning. If I have not witnessed learning from eachother, than there has to be another word for it. I am aware of instinct, it is an advanced type of intelligence in itself- but it denotes a pattern of behaviors synonymous with particular species. What about those behaviors that are outside of the "pattern"? I am not saying that they can learn to speak our sign language, but we haven't done a great job learning theirs either... Perhaps someone can shed some light on this. Best to you- Mike

Does not waste energy, that conserves its energy (an instinct to survive long periods without food, after all, all monitors have to do so or they will die), they do not, and are not designed to conduct themselves in behaviors that waste energy for no return on that effort.
The idea is that they wont put the effort into an activity unless that effort will return to them a reward in more usable energy (ie, food). So to get a monitor to search or chase food, is not playing, its business to them.
The activity of playing among some species is found in higher mammals. These creatures use it as a social activity, a communication, an activity to establish dominance in a family group, to teach offspring and to strengthen them as they grow.
Dogs are a perfect example, they are decended from wolves which actively play among each other until adulthood, at which point adults do not play with each other, but this is for survival. Dogs play their entire life as their brains never grow up beyond the puppy stage (compared to the wolf), but this was chosen by humans as a feature that was preferred, so therefore those who played their entire life were allowed to breed, those who did not, were not allowed to breed.
Monitors are intelligent reptiles, they are designed to survive in harsh environments without food for long periods of time (instinct), so therefore a monitor that would waste its energy in a behavior that does not return energy to it would not grow up, would not reproduce, would place it in danger of predators, and that behavior would in turn be extinct (natural selection in action).
For a monitor play serves no purpose, so any playing you would do with them serves only the purpose of entertaining you, and aggrevating them. I dont know how else to explain it to you. They just cannot understand the idea, or purpose to playing, they know it is a waste, and to avoid it.
They are intelligent enough to know that if you call them and offer food they will come to you once they can trust you enough to get near you (not complete trust). They will continue to come to you for food, if that reward is eventually not offered they will learn that it became a waste of time and energy to come to you when called and will stop.
Playing may be a bad term to use if you mean interacting with food as a reward.

I have to disagree with your train of thought. Captives are not behaviorally the same as wild successful individuals. And in so many ways. They may have the same inherent instinct, but it ends there.

Captive reptiles, hmmmm snakes included, do not know how to kill like their wild brothers and sisters(a subject you mentioned). They do not know how to secure food, they do not even know how to copulate like wild individuals. Or combat. This is sooooooo easy to test. and I have.

The question is, if its all instinctual, why do the wild ones do it better? Why are they far more aware? Why are they far better at what they do?

Try giving captive hatched monitor a large wild prey item. You will laugh you arse off, captives act very much like newbies. They know they are suppose to do something, but cannot figure out what. Wild individuals, know what and how to take large prey.(just one example of a zillion examples) Perhaps they learned something.(as opposed to already coming fully equiped)

Which brings up the other side of the coin, This wild training also makes wild individuals more demanding in captivity. They already know how things are suppose to be. They have learned. They are prejudiced as to how they are suppose to live. Captive born, have instinct and are far more pliable then their wild counterparts.

So, no, they do not perform solely on instinct. Its sad that folks are extremist, its either all this or all that. Which is rarely the case with anything. Humans paint these stupid lines. Animals do whats need to survive. YES, they have instinct, its a START. Just like an education from school. You still have to polish and develop it through use. So it is with instinct. Cheers

Ive seen some captive bred individuals that are not good with large live prey items, and some that seem to know (with no experience prior to that) how to finish it off fast. Sobek is one that I tried this with, she has had a few large live prey items, small, medium, etc over the years, and she seems to handle large prey items with ease, and small with less proficiency (she instantly grabs and crushes the head).
My current red ackies are an example that goes both ways, the male is deadly to prey items that are large, hes like a madman with this violent attack and hard shake and never lets go. The female is the opposite, she runs and avoids the subject.
My flavi-argus is a violent killer to larger prey itmes, or small, or medium, but I dont know his history in his first year of life.
I agree that they do learn to do certain things, but play is not something they do or want to learn. Play is something we as humans (very social creatures) wish that our captives want to engage in, or want to do (labeling human ideals on a creature that does not behave like a human only because we wish it would).
Like I said, anyone who wants to play with a pet, get a dog, they enjoy it unendingly.
Maybe I should have worded that differently, they are born with the basis to most of what they need to accomplish in life.
Maybe the idea of many many being born (a reptiles usual survival feature) and some being eaten, some learning to avoid this and be sucessful, and a few trying something that makes them even more sucessful is a better way to explain it.
Maybe thats why some CB examples are better at some things.
Maybe this shows those examples that in the wild would do better, and some that are just meant to distract the predators from the others.

Hello,

Ruling out play, and imagination (which I'm not sure that dogs and cats use during "play", and going onto the topic of reptile learning... It's funny that food was mentioned because that was the basis of one of the first learning observations that I had made. Our croc monitors never having accepted whole fish learned after watching another species eat up that the fish was okay to eat and began to readily along with their rodents. Mary and I found that the fastest way for us to get beardies or Rankins onto a pelleted diet (if that is what you want to do...) is to house them with one that readily accepts them and they will. Our turtles and tortoises all accept eachothers foods- greens, meats, fruits- even our Albino FL snapper eats greens when it sees the tortoises doing so. I have not experienced this type of learning with any of our sankes- I'm not sure that they do this- has anyone here? Best to you- Mike

snakes-, sorry- Mike

And it does help the picky ones to decide to try something new. I think the idea that their competition will eat something different, therefore allowing them to gain an upperhand in the race for dominance, helps to persuade others in the same cage, or nearby. I used to keep multiple species of small lizards together, even among different species they learn to eat what the others do, and catch food like the others do.
A good friend had some great examples, he had a huge outdoor turle/tortoise pen. In this he had multiple species, the box turtles seemed to convince the others that eating anything that was moveable was a good idea, and indeed for all it was. His water turtles convinced many land dwellors to swim. His turtles and torts grew huge, the "supposed" herbivores ate smaller turtles and scavenged from the dead, ate dead birds, and even a rabbit. The water turtles even eat fruit and veggies sometimes with the others.
makes you wonder, when someone has multiple species of lizard in the same room, say iguanas, tegus, and monitors all within sight of each other. There are many monitors that will eat some fruit etc, if they see their neighbors eating it (even other species), it may convince them to try it themselves. Maybe this is why some peoples monitors eat vegetable matter and some of ours wont do more that taste it, if even that.
We taught some picky beardies to eat roaches faster by putting a few together inside of a roach colony for a while, they try to eat until they cannot fit one more bite.

As you know, I've kept lot's of wild caught animals as well as captive bred. I could toss a dead rabbit into a wild caught dumeril's cage and it would be well eaten by the next morning, toss the same rabbit into a cross cage and I have no doubt it would be there the next day.
In my opinion captive bred animals are world's apart from wild caught animals.

First, do not believe what you read(see) on the internet. What you saw is a KD taking a rag and trying to eat it. I had that happen with croc monitors. Its not playing. It would be playing if the KD threw the rag back and took it again, over and over.

You see, you really need some evidence that the monitor is simply not taking the hankie. Monitors do take stuff.

Do they Play? that is a very hard question to answer. I keep lots of monitors and for a very long time(probably more and longer then anyone in the world) I keep them in groups and I see things that could be considered playing. Like large males, messing with my head. Doing these fake dives at my feet. They then back up and appear to laugh. Ok, they don't laugh, they just look at me as I dance around.(anyone watching this would laugh)

What I do not see is neonates playing(the ones that should play) They do practice behaviors, but do not do anything that could be consistantly called playing. Now consider, I have raised thousands, and of many species.

I also live in the desert and have lots of wild lizards around. I never see them play, everything they do is of direct meaning to their lifes.

I would love to think our monitors are somehow having fun or experiencing some joy. And I believe they do. But not from playing. They appear to take satisfaction, from accomplishing their day to day tasks. Yes, they exhibit a look of satisfaction, from a job well done.

Ok, I take that back, I have seen wild monitors(of many species) play with me. They are so good at escaping, they will actually taunt you and play with you. I have many of these stories if your interested. I took my son and his friend(14 years of age) several times to australia. Some very funny stories.(being played by monitors)

Also, I have seen very fast local lizards, play with our captive monitors. That had to be called playing of some sort. They would run up within inches of the monitor, bob their heads and zoom away at rocket speed and do it over and over. A deadly game of cat and mouse. Unfortunately the monitors won, as they simply waited until the fast lizards holed up, then dug them up. Cheaters I say. Cheers

They don't play like a mammal does. I agree with Frank. I've hatched lots of baby monitors and raised many to adulthood and never have I seen babies or adults play with eachother. They are very indifferent towards eachother most of the time. When they do acknowledge eachother its due to some sort of dominance/submissive behavior. I have had several monitors do the "tug-og-war" thing for several minutes. I toss a towel to them and they grab the towel with their mouths and tug like a bull-dog. They will continue this for a while. This is NOT play. This is an show of dominance because they don't see the towel as a towel. They see it as an extension of you and they are simply in a fight with you. This is strictly defensive "standing their ground" behavior.
Rob.

Thank you all for the information - most interesting.

Yes, I would be interested in mroe stories; and perhaps you can satisfy my curiosity about some other things I have read on the internet - like cooperation in Niles (stealing croc eggs), and ability to open doors?

Also, what do your monitors typically do in a 'day's work'?
Do they have routines (as I've read that iguanas do)?
Do they like watching things from the window?

Sorry about the late reply - had too much to do in my last lunchbreak!

Cheers

Want to term it cooperation among nile monitors eating croc eggs. I think one person made an observation that made them think it could be construed as appearing like cooperation, after all they come from miles around and come from all sides to get to the eggs. So the croc is bound to chase one of them, then the others will rush in and eat. If the food supply wasnt so plentiful at the nesting spots, do you think multiple niloticus would show up at the same time? I think its more of a free for all, but those niloticus that are larger and more dominant would run in there quickly, and the others would wait for their chance.

Ive had monitors attack the same prey item rip, tear, and shake it into pieces, and kill it faster, but the only reason they shared was because it came apart and each wanted to eat their piece before the other was done and came after the other half.