Reptile & Amphibian Forums

After a little research I've found a few monitor morphs. Albino niles, albino and sulfur water monitors, "hypo" savannahs. Does anyone know if there are any other morphs in monitor lizards? If so post a pic or just educate me with whats out there.

I don't think that sulfurs are a "morph". And I'm skeptical of those "hypo" Boscs and Niles. They look perfectly normal to me.

Hopefully "morphs" don't ruin the monitor keeping hobby as it has the snake keeping hobby.

-Reed

from what i understand, sulphurs are just another locality that the importers are being very hush hush about.

I agree with your first paragraph, but not the second.

Morphs are a natural progression of successful husbandry. I do think, we should respect them all the same. As long as we do not lose what the originals are, then its not a problem.

And yes, in many cases, lots of folks have lost what the originals are. But its not a case of morphs. Its a case of betterment thru selective breeding.

Such species as thayeri and pyros, in the colubrid world. What people think are the normals in captivity, do not represent what is normal in nature. I imagine the same goes for cornsnakes and many other colubrids. Even the pits do this.

It seems to be a case of breeding the prettyist to the prettyist and then calling those offspring normals. Keep doing this and the normal without question changes.

The problem with varanids is, most morphs are purchased by folks who do not have the ability to produce them and they disappear. But many true morphs do/did occur, just like any other reptile. Cheers

So..........Has anyone seen morphs in monitors and whatever happened to them?

Albino Waters, Albino Savs and Niles, and the Albino Bluetail come to mind.

THANK YOU ERIC!

Don't expect to see anything but Albino Waters on the market. I'm not gonna go into specifics, but NERD has produced hets from their Albino Water and thats about it. I don't beleive anyone has produced any Africans yet.

Finally tracked down a male so hopefully I'll have some luck with these guys this year:

John
That is an EYE popper for sure!!

Good Luck with them!

Mike
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Mike's Monitors!

The original species comes in many variations (with a species that comes from such a broad range) that they dont look at all local versions to see that they are not morphs really. Those who sell these creatures call them different names to get a few extra bucks from you as the buyer. If you compare a species thats rarely ever bred in captivity such as the bosc monitor, there are many natural variations at the same size and age from different altitudes, differing landscapes, from fields to forest. In order to call one a morph you would have to take 2 with strong resemblance and similar features, breed them, and breed the offspring to exagerrate a feature, as this feature becomes so exagerrated it now is far from the originals, now you could call it a morph.
Hypo this, and hyper that, on species not frequently bred in captivity are terms used to seek out the "sucker" and his wallet.