Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This is in response to what I read in the earlier thread about dumerilii. It occurred to me that the huge success in captive breeding of monitors is almost exclusively confined to species from relatively dry and simple environments. For example there are thousands or tens of thousands of CB gouldii panoptes acanthurus pilbarensis storri abigularis etc and all of them could be at F25 generation by now. Is that a reasonable assumption? But I can't think of a wet forest dwelling species that has been bred in that way, or anything like it. In fact for most species it's still generally a rare event. It could be a lack of demand for those monitors, so there's less financial incentive, but for the prasinus group and (gulp) croc monitors, or any or the rarely seen Indonesian forms I can't imagine that it wouldn't be worthwhile and that lots of people haven't tried. It's of particular interest and importance because all the species with small threatened populations that would benefit from captive breeding are forest lizards and aren't being bred. The only non-forest species that is threatened is the Komodo dragon and that is being bred so much they make omelettes from them.

If it's really the case that forest monitors cannot be bred with the same high degree of success than other species then doesn't that suggest that they need something different. If so, what is it?
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Mampam Conservation

Daniel
I'm working real hard with Jobiensis, perhaps one day this status your talking about will change.

These are my second clutch, I don't want to shoot myself in the foot...but I have two gravid females now.
Both unrelated bloodlines.
Mike
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Mike's Monitors!

One more thing, of course they are different!
You never heard of anyone breeding "forest types" in the traditional horse troughs setups!
Mike
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Mike's Monitors!

Of course you built a better top. I have to tell you, I have a hard time breeding any medium sized monitor in a trough. Troughs are for ackies and such. Heck, they are kinda small for ackies.

Again to me its not about the monitors. Its about people. Why on earth would anyone keep a medium sized monitor in a cattle trough?????????? I get it, it works for ackies, so it will work for a croc monitor, hahahahahahahahaha how silly is that. Of course thats an extreme, but its not much different with gouldi types, you cannot keep an argus in a trough. At least not very well. Same for gouldi, or flavis, oh unless you modify it like you did.

Whoops did i just give away the secert to breeding monitors. COMMON SENSE and space. Cheers

Nothing compares to a trough for holding moist substrate!

This custom trough at 8'L, 3'W, 8'H, is a FAR cry from the "traditional" trough setups.

Mike
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Mike's Monitors!

Hi Mike, I think that's my point. Hardly anybody has ever bred jobiensis but its been in the trade for more than 30 years. Nice work!
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Mampam Conservation

Daniel
They are becoming a little easier to read and deal with!
They are a daily chore, but I have nothing but time now.
I was severly injured on the job and can no longer work my job.
22 years as a Cement Finisher, my Wife and I have switched roles.
I am a stay at home Dad now and have lots of time these guys need to be sucessfull.
Things should start to get easier as these hatchling grow and become mature breeders.
I will be expanding into a few other species as time goes by.
I will not over burden myself though, like I used to do with several species.
Thanks for the kind words!

Mike
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Mike's Monitors!

I know your a busy guy, but if you ever get out to Chicago let me know.
I make a killer Dago(Italian) sangwich!!
Mike
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Mike's Monitors!

I think it's more of the fact that the majority of people keeping Monitors can't keep them alive for more than a year. The Aussies are always going to dominate the market because you can keep them in mud and feed them cow pies and they'd still do alright. It also helps that they are captive bred, and not as sensitive as imports are. It takes a different person to take care of these animals, where most treat them like snakes and wonder why they bury more than they can keep up with.

Daniel

Not sure where you'd place salvators in your question, but they are easy to breed. They are not easy to sell once you have them. Everyone who wants one when you have eggs disappears when you have hatchlings. Those that stick around for the hatchlings want to pay you what the people selling imports charge. I put too much care and effort into my animals to be willing to sell them at a price that makes them disposable (which is how I landed the pair that spawned all but one of my salvators now and is how I ended up with the one unrelated to all my others). So, I quit breeding salvators (I still have them). I have been toying with the plan of producing more eggs and hatching them. Time will tell if I decide to go through that headache again.

As Mike mentioned somewhere else, people created hodgepodges of monitors of different species and never did much with any of them. I bred timors, which were also incredibly easy, and can see myself breeding that species again. It is certainly easier to keep 10 timor babies than 10 salvator babies. Unfortunately, at the moment, I have only 1 timor left so unless it goes parthogenic on me, I will not have more of them soon. I have a "guaranteed male" argus that drops eggs from time to time but that did me no good when I had a female already. Now I have just my "male" and she would need to go parthogenic on me as well.
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^x^ Bloodbat ^x^
Monitors, monitors everywhere
and all the food they ate.
Monitors, monitors everywhere,
their parents loved to mate.

Paul
How the heck are you!?
I am glad to see you back!
Please stay in touch Brother.
I think you'll find folks now a days would indeed be willing to pay a bit more for captive bred.
Make your way through all of the other places(forums) and you'll see some things have changed for the better.
Good luck and I hope to see you around more!
Mike

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Mike's Monitors!

No, I meant species that are restricted to wet forests, salvator don't count because they can live pretty much anywhere!
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Mampam Conservation

Are you sure they live "in" wet forests, or do they use the edge of forests. Like hillsides, river shores, or canopy tops. You know, the only places that sun hits.

My bet is, monitors are sun seekers and mainly thrive in places with available sun. Cheers

They certainly don't thrive in places with no sun, but there again, neither do forests!
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Mampam Conservation