Reptile & Amphibian Forums

for the past few days ive noticed my red ackie has gone nocturnal. it was kind of a gradual transition. he used to come out at around 10am and stay out until 2-3pm but now he sleeps all day and comes out at midnight until about 4 in the morning. he didnt just decide to sleep all day and come out at night though. one day he would be active at say, 3-8 in the morning and the next day it would be 1-6 in the morning until it became midnight until around 4.

i use a 24/7 night cycle and im wondering if this could be what causing him to go 'nocturnal'. im not worried about him because he's eating good and everything im just wondering why he sleeps all day and comes out at night. have any of you noticed your monitors doing this?

people on another forum said i should switch to a 12/12 or 14/10 schedule.
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-Marshall
1.1.0 ball pythons
0.0.1 red ackie

So I guess the regurg episode was for nothing????? Consider, if the lites are on, its not night or nocturnal.

Next, you have not had your ackie long enough to call anything it does normal. Patience and time are needed here. If you really want to keep check of your monitor and find out what is or is not normal for it. Keep a daily log of what its doing. Then after a month review the data, then three months, a year. Then crunch the data and see if theres a pattern or patterns forming. Then year after year, you can see how those patterns change.

Now consider, they are suppose to form patterns, then change those patterns. Also consider, different patterns overlap. They should have layers of patterns.

Lets get back to your delima. One of the REAL advantages of having lites on 24/7 is exactly what your monitor is taking advantage of. It can choose when and where to come out and be active. The key is, when it wants, not when you want. Your monitor is learning to find times that are its own.

Those folks on the other forum must be very egotistical. That is, they want to force the monitor to do its stuff, when they/you want it and not when the monitor wants it.

I know, I know, lites on 24/7 is not natural. Let me break the news to you and the other forum. Putting them in little cages and putting a lite bulb on a time clock is not natural either. Its not even close to natural.

Those who think a cage is natural, or a lite bulb is the sun. Or a lite bulb on a time clock is somehow the sun going on and off, or represent nature, are surely not the brightest lite bulb in the box.

Please think about this, this is very important. Cages are not a mimic of nature, that is ridiculous. Please think about it, your cage is not like any spot in western australia(where reds come from) There is almost nothing similar, heck there is nothing in your cage, or those folks on the other forum (unless they are from the monitors natural habitat)that is the same as their natural habitat. For starters, when its night in oz, its day here, when its summer in oz, its winter here.

Please think and think hard about this. Your cage is suppose to allow your monitor to express natural behaviors. The changing of your cage conditions allow your monitor to express a range of natural behavior. Giving choices, allow the expression of a range of behaviors. In my experience, I think it takes three or four different cages to allow just basic normal behavior. Do not worry about this, as you only need to understand the raise/grow up part of your monitors life.

A cage is to promote natural behaviors in a very unnatural way. With that said, My monitors have a history of expressing natural behavior above and beyond what was known. Whether I use lites 24/7 or not, or if I use natural sun and photoperiod. I get the same results in all three different types of lite.

As I have mentioned until I am blue in the face. The very first goal is the ability to achieve the most basic of lifes events, to hatch, to grow, to pair up, to reproduce, to get old and to finally die. I bet most of those on the other forum have a poor history of allowing there monitors to achieve these most basic of life events.

Now consider, there are many catagories within these life events, each of these catagories can be measured and compared to others results. Like growth rate, clutch size and frequency, amount of clutches in their life(total reproduction), total Longevity, etc. All of these expressed events together are the measure of how well a monitor is kept. Not how natural you or other keepers think the cage is or looks. The results of the monitors progress are whats to be judged, not the appearance of the cage or a lite bulb.

Back to your monitor, you have allowed your monitor to study you and figure out how to avoid you and use you. This is a good thing. Its doing natural behavior, its learning to avoid you like your a predator(your a big old predator, no matter what you think you are)(maybe a friendly one, but still one)

If you choose, you could only feed at a specific time, say noon. By doing that, your monitor will learn to adjust its schedule to come out and feed at noon. If you do this repeatedly, it will be there at noon when its hungry. It will be there exactly at noon. No matter what the lites do. No matter if its active at night or not.

All in all, my advice would be like before, your monitor is doing great, from what you say, so why on earth would you want to change that????? Cheers and choose wisely.

thanks Frank. the people om the other forums reasoning for turning off the light was to let the monitor cool down and sleep. i guess that makes sense but the way i have my cage set-up my ackie can access cool, dark places so i dont really see why that would matter really.

im going to leave the lights on and start feeding during the day i think. i was feeding him when he came out but i dont think i can stay up until that late every night.

one thing though. his activity 'cycle' seems to be gradually changing about an hour or so sooner every day. do you have an idea why? could this be a sign that he doesnt know what time of day it is? its almost like he thinks he's been coming out at a certain time but his 'clock' is and hour or so earlier then what he thinks it is.

he's grown 2 inches if not more since the month and a half ive had him and when i last weighed him about 2 weeks ago he had gone from 8 grams to 16 grams. does that sounds like he's doing good? he eats like a pig.
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-Marshall
1.1.0 ball pythons
0.0.1 red ackie

Thats the point of many of my posts, your monitor is doing great, just the way it is. So why on earth would you even think about what "any" others have to say. Your monitor is say, I am doing good, I am growing fine.

Of course, ackies can grow up to four inches a month. But for someones first attempt, your doing great. Except all the worrying and control issues.

Lets try this again, as long as your monitor is doing satisfactory, then do not judge what its doing, just observe it. You do not have to make sense or have explainations for every little thing. After a while, it will all come together and make sense. Then after raising several, it will make more sense, then after raising bunches, it will make more sense. But trying to "know" why your monitor does every little thing will only make your, hmmmmmmmmmmmmmnuts.

I somehow get the feeling you think theres one reason for every thing a monitor does. There can be one reason, or two or ten, or no reason at all.

Reptiles, in this case monitors, have two basic areas that cause behavior, one is their own wants and needs(behavior), or just plain physical needs. Remember, they are not like you. What if you could not get warm enough, or you could not get cool enough. Or you could not get dry or cannot get any water. You see, all that stuff is automatic with you. But not so with your monitor. Those basic needs have to stay within a normal range for your monitor to act normal. Once the physical needs are met, then you can address behavioral needs. Like shelter. Shelter if far more important then a lite bulb going on and off. As they use their (dark) shelter/s anytime during a 24 hour period. Do those fellas on the other forum understand that? If they did, then they would understand, your monitor can get cool and dark, 24/7, just like in nature.

Your other forum seens to have a disturbing understanding of reptiles, including monitors. Reptiles stay hidden most of any 24 hour period. Some species of reptiles spend a fair amount of time outside of shelters, but monitors are more like snakes in this area, they may spend 80% or more of their life in their hiding areas. This is day and night.

Consider, I have one colony of ackies outside, without any artifical lites, they may spend an hour or two every other day, out on top the ground, mainly early mourning after rains or a cold night. Then they may spend another hour or two, under boards thermoregulating their temps, then they spend the rest of the time underground. Consider, where they come from has very similar weather and temps to here. Its a little hotter where they come from, but only a little. Lastly consider, they are doing great, one of the three females just laid 11 perfect eggs and the other two females are now becoming gravid. Cheers

well thanks again for great lesson Frank. hey do you know which ackies of yours are mines parents? do you know what my ackies hatch date was?

one more question though. my ackie has started another shed cycle but hasn't shed about a fifth of his tail. what can i do to remedie this? or do i even need to something? ive been wetting his dirt in different places (just a few different areas so he can choose how moist he wants to be) and his second shed is coming off nicely (better then his first with me). im hoping this little bit on his tail will come off with this shed.
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-Marshall
1.1.0 ball pythons
0.0.1 red ackie

In this forum and a couple of others, I find a find what one could call a disturbing misunderstanding of reptile behaviour, specifically with monitors, most notably what they do in the wild. Since this is a monitor forum, I will stick to the monitor issue on the matter of the broad sweeping statement ‘monitors spending 80% of their time under the ground or in hiding places, in other words, ‘subterranean' or even 'fossorial monitors?'

Although there are some species of monitors that do spend a significant amount of time under ground, this can not be attributed to the majority of monitor species. It must be remembered that in cases where monitors spend a majority of time in burrows, this is often because of unfavorable conditions, such as Varanus albigularis spending significant amounts of time in burrows during the cold and dry parts of the year.

In more tropical climates, there are relatively few examples of Varanus hiding in shelters/burrows during daylight hours because conditions are optimal for the majority of the year. When conditions are optimal, most species are more appropriately described as perpetual motion machines searching out prey to appease a seemingly insatiable hunger. When you combine optimal conditions with a readily available supply of prey in the wild, you have a fat perpetual motion machine that is on the move, if not on the move, stopped above ground surveying the area, or basking, not taking refuge in a hiding place or burrow, unless it is too hot, then the conditions are no longer optimal, are they?

These are just simple observations of monitors in the wild. When I observe certain populations, I see the same individual specimens at all times of the day during daylight hours from relatively cool temperatures of 23°C to basking on black top roads at 42°C. Is someone else seeing this ‘subterranean’ or ‘fossorial’ behaviour in wild populations over extended periods of time or are they basing these observations on short time observations during non-optimal conditions or possibly even observing this only in captives that are being kept in conditions far different from what they naturally exist in?

I have read claims that people observing them in the wild are not seeing things in their behaviour, going as far as to suggest they are blind. Well, many are observing that species are not spending most of the day in burrows, at least in their native habitat. The same individual specimens are seen at all hours of the day. To observe a population, you must find where the population is active then set up and observe, preferably from a hide. Of course, those with limited observation times do not have the time to waste all this time, ending up disturbing the targeted population area and the monitors will then, of course, take refuge and then the ‘hit and run’ observer makes the statement: ‘Monitors spend most of their time in burrows’. One has to ask: who is blind, the ones seeing monitors active in their native habitat or the ones not seeing them, making assumptions that they are hiding in their burrows 80% of the time or digging them out after they took refuge? It is my assumption that the ones who do not see are blind; at least, that is what defines blindness.

Now as this applies to captivity, one has to ask, if the conditions are optimal above ground, why is the monitor not following its natural behaviour and why is it opting to spend the majority of its time under ground to find the conditions that it wants and needs (heat/humidity)? The answer should be self-evident. A more accurate description of monitors spending large amounts of time in burrows while in captivity and in nature would be that they are escaping sub-optimal conditions or threats above ground.

Cheers,
Michael

...Or there is something they need that overshadows the risk of predation and water loss, say something that comes easily and freely in captivity.

You'd make a great university professor.

--Robert

>>...Or there is something they need that overshadows the risk of predation and water loss, say something that comes easily and freely in captivity.
>>
>>You'd make a great university professor.
>>
>>--Robert

Yes, the easy availability of prey; they do not need to forage- one example.

I'll fix your statement for you then.

A more accurate description of monitors spending large amounts of
time being active while in captivity and in nature would be that
they are trying to meet some basic needs.

I'll leave it to your superior understanding, knowledge and experience to contemplate how this affects your original post.

--Robert

I do not disagree with enviornmental conditions being a factor with why they stay in burrows/holes/hollows/crevices. Let these equal shelter for further discussion. But their shelters do far more then that.

Sir, sadly it appears you do not understand reptiles in the least, or so it seems by what you say and show.

I say, have said until I am blue in the face, the most important element of a cage to give the monitor/s a home. Consider, the cage is not a home. A home is a series of shelters(see first paragraph)

These shelters are their home, their home is their shelter, their homes are the center of their activities. These homes/shelters are their base, as in their safty. They allow escape from adverse conditions, including predators They even allow escape from nuisances. Like bugs and other pests, including being watched my humans(a huge nuisance) Part of their home area is the ability to preform lifes events in areas they cannot be seen.

Without this base/home/shelter, they are nomadic and solitary. Kinda why you academics think like you do, you tend to watch the homeless.

Since I added super hot temps(135F or - 15F) and added deep substrate, to captive husbandry, monitors all over this nation and others, have started expressing a range of life events that were otherwise very very rare. Now they are commonplace. There is no arguement with this. Yes, I am the individual who added this. Next

I see life events on a daily basis, that is, varanids hatching/nesting/breeding/ pairing/ socializing and more. Of course feeding is an hourly event. Many days I see all the above in a single day or at the same time. Then I took this knowledge and went in the field. I had no problems finding nesting/gravid females/ some breeding/lots of groups and pairs, etc. Both the captive and field observations have been with many many species.

Consider, I have also seen and studied these life events with many other similar reptiles.

Now I ask you this sir. What have you done? with captive monitors, have you been able to express life events? at all? commonly? rarely? or have you only read about others doing so?

Now I ask you this, have you seen these important basic life events in nature. No sir, not a monitor swimming, or basking. But such important to their exsistance events as, nesting/hatching/pairing(they must pair or they will go exstint)/ copulating, congregating, etc ??????? have you seen any or all of these?

Let me remind you, you said, you have the greatest concentration of water monitors in the world. Therefore, life events such as these must occur very very very commonly. They must breed/nest/hatch/ grow/ socialize(pair) etc etc. You really should see this stuff commonly, do you?

To put that in prespective, how many females in your area lay eggs every season? one? ten? a hundred? a thousand? many thousand??? Sir, all logic predicts its commonplace. Yet, you cannot/rarely see it or find it. Why?????? You and I know crocs nest and their nests are easy to find. You would have no problem finding that. Heck, you can estimate how many crocs nest in an area. Yet you do not have the foggist idea about monitors. WHY? Why haven't you seen it? or any of it.

Sir the answer is obvious. You are either blind as a bat, dumb as a stone. Or merely looking in the wrong places. I will take it as, your not looking in the right places. Now lets go back to the subject. Its very possible you do not see it(important life events) because you do not have a base understanding of what monitors do. Which leads you to look in the wrong places and have a total ignorance of what monitors do.

Now sir. I hope you want to argue this because my next question is going to put you on the hot seat. If you know so much, then prove it. Show me/us that you have knowledge of what these wonderful reptiles do, if your so dang smart, you must have pictures(YOU TOOK) of monitors breeding, nesting, pairing, hatching, etc, both from nature and captivity. Do you pocess such pictures of your own?????????? Do you have any proof that your skills and understanding of varanids is nothing more then book read?????????You know, quoting others with the same lack of experience and first hand knowledge. After all, you have shown pics and must know how to post them.

You see Mrcota, that is the point of this very forum. What we do here is PRACTICE the keeping of varanids, not theorize the keeping of varanids. The advice I offer is from actual successful experience I have gained. Both in nature and in captivity. In a very basic(to basic for you it appears) my advice is gained from the actual doing. So bring it on sir. Lets see the fruit of your labor and understanding. Or is all you bring talk. Cheers and I hope you gain my respect.

I do not come here to argue, but I will come here to dispel misinformation. The information that you give on captive monitors, is just that, captive monitors, but you make blanket statements of generalization on all monitors, including wild monitors, those that you have never seen in the wild before (Varanus salvator and others) which just are not true. The point made is that monitors as a whole DO NOT spend 80% hidden away. This is not only my observation, but the observations of other people that have been in the field far more than I have over their lifetime. You continue to think that I am just coming up with observations based on what I read. Could this be because others just happen to see what I see also? Why is this? Is it because it is what actually occurs? I find it interesting that no one that has spent time observing them in the wild supports these things that only you see: pair bonding for instance, you will get a real laugh out of anyone that lives where monitors do on that one, but I guess everyone but you only sees the ‘homeless’ monitors.

As for my field skills, they are far from weak; just in May I found 3 critically endangered and extremely shy Crocodylus siamensis, of which only 2 specimens were known to exist in a 2160 km2 area of protected primary rainforest. I also rediscovered a lizard species in Guam in the past decade thought to have been extinct for over 40 years and remains the only specimen to be found to date. If you want to continue with your delusions of my field skills as well as continuing to see things in the field that no one else does (including those that you are with?), that is completely up to you. After all, I am not the one suffering from credibility in this area. What I am seeing is consistent with what others who go into the field are seeing, not what is coming out of a book. The only person who sees something else appears to be you.

Concerning pictures that I have taken, I do not constantly have my camera with me. I could not even say that I have it with me most of the time and doubt if I have even taken more than a couple hundred pictures total. I have already destroyed one camera this year. I am not a photographer, like Austin Stevens, nor am I very good at it. The monitors here are very wary of human presence; any movement, even the blinking of eyes gives you away, yet alone the movements of taking pictures. There are pictures I could post and misrepresent what they actually are, as I have seen so many times before. I could even throw in some pictures of mine from Australia that have absolutely nothing to do with the subject ; however, integrity keeps me from doing that. Have I seen monitors come together? Yes, of course. Is it social behaviour? NO! It could be much better described as anti-social or cautious behaviour in the majority of instances and indifference in most of the other occasions.

When it comes to your observations in captivity, I am not questioning them, but as you so often like to proclaim, what monitors do in captivity is not what they do in nature. You do seem to have a problem thinking that captive observation= what they do in the nature or are you truly delusional and think you are the only one in the world that sees the things you do in nature?

Cheers,
Michael

You seem to have a burr in your saddle, so you interpid things in some adverse way.

For instance, you say I make blanket statements. No sir, I am making general statements, as they are not about one species or individuals differences. Your loss here.

You say you come to dispel misinformation, yet you offer nothing. Sir, that approach is to only argue. You want to disagree, but have nothing to offer. Each time you have a thought, look at at the top of the page and read the large letters.

Then you say my infomation is about captive monitors, YES SIR, your are right. And I am dang good with captive monitors(or ungodly lucky). So yes, the examples I use with wild monitors is to convey WHAT HAS WORKED, with captives. That you disagree only shows you to be naive, spoiled and arguementative.

About your field skills, finding an animal has little to do with observing its life events. As I asked. No offense, but we are talking varanids and more specifically taking information, life events, from wild monitors that is of BENEFIT to captives. A giant point you miss because your lost in this area or only want to argue.

More on your field skills, I did not judge them, I only asked(challanged) you to show pics of life events. Sir, after you do or do not do that, I can then judge you.

Because my statements are very general, and consider, they work across the board of varanid species. Your pics from Oz will be great, I welcome them.

I do not proclaim monitors to be different in captivity. Not at all, everything I do is taken from nature. That is why my husbandry did not fit the norm at the time. Its getting very normal now, thank goodness. What I claim is, the monitors are exactly the same, just the conditions keepers give them are different. Sir, you would have to explain how a monitor can be collected, shipped, then become different?????????????? Do they have some device at airports that alters them genetically?????? Or do you simply do not understand monitors?

About delusions, I never said I am the only one who sees whatever you think I am seeing. I only asked YOU, want you see.(on a side note, I do wonder if you guys ever leave the pub) I asked you if you saw any observations of basic life events??????? other then sitting and basking or swimming. I even hoped to see feeding. But again you have failed to show or answer, or respond to anything I asked. You only argue and spew your beliefs, I asked questions, answer the dang things or go away and bother someone else. Again, I ask for results, not theories or interpitations. I have results. God that is getting boring, so called scientists that do not understand what results are.

Remember, I have positive results, and thats the goal here, TO ACHIEVE POSITIVE RESULTS.

On a side note, I have always wondered why People like you, which appear to be poor academics(I only say poor, because I know some good ones) totally fail with keeping the subject(monitors) of your academic interests?????? If your so learned about wild monitors, why are you so poor at keeping them. The academics as a whole that come to argue(they bring no results) with me, seem to always be at the begining level of captive husbandry. One such academic would say, FR your sure good with monitors, but you wrong about them. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHahahahahahahahahaha how stinking funny is that. I have learned to use the word ACADEMICS, because it indicates their education is from reading about a subject. Not doing the subject.

Please, I think some of you are very very smart, the problem seems to be, you never have to obtain results of your observations or readings. Other then checking the spelling. You simply read it and your smart(right) or see it and your smart(right). You think to test your education is to take a written or oral examine. The funny part is, that is only to test if your read something or saw something, not that the material you read or saw, was right or actually worked. To actually test something is to do it. In the case of this forum and the subject of our discussions, to see if it works with monitors in captivity. You should understand(if there is a brain in your head) that if it does not work on captives, then it does not matter if its right wrong or indifferent, to your academic understanding. Kinda a combination of why do you academics come here, a place your weak in, and why do you argue without results.

Its that basic understanding that intitles me to think you "poor" academics are not the brightest bulb in the box, or the sharpest tack in another box. IN THIS CASE, the data I use from wild monitors is directly taken for the use in captivity, NOT how it fits in the ecology of a wild monitor. You see, ITS ALL ABOUT CAPTIVITY, AS THE TITLE ON THIS FORUM INDICATES. How can you not understand that simple concept? If you cannot understant that, oh never mind.

On another side note, There is a natural history forum somewhere. Cheers and answer the dang questions.

lastnight he was on top of his boards and was completely straight. i was able to get a feel for how long he was. he look about 11, atleast 10 1/2 inches. that means he's grown atleast 3 and half inches, most likely four since i got him a month and a half ago. he also took his first mouse pinkie last night.
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-Marshall
1.1.0 ball pythons
0.0.1 red ackie

IF your monitor has grown over 4 inches in a month and a half, 1. WHY would you want to change anything? 2. Why would you even give those folks on the other forum a second thought?????? 3. And lastly and more importantly, stop with the worrying and whinig, hahahahahahahahaha From all the worrying you do, the poor thing should be all skinny and messed up. Its not hey?

Keep up the good work Marshall. Cheers

i wasn't worrying about anything. i was just letting you know how my monitor was doing since you're the one who bred him and everything. kinda like an update.

i know i do a lot of worrying though. this is my first lizard technically (my first first lizard was a western fence lizard that i caught and cared for as an experiment) so i just want to make sure everything's going smoothly, and it is. i dont think there's anything wrong with asking a lot of questions and making sure your animal is okay.
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-Marshall
1.1.0 ball pythons
0.0.1 red ackie

something wrong with asking questions. hahahahahahahaha

The problem is, you will get all sorts of answers, from beginers like you, to PHD's. Which sounds good so far. The problem is. You do not know which bit of advice is good and useable. Even PHD's can give horrible advice about the actual keeping of monitors. They sure are great for theory.

Heres the deal, its great and very scientific to question. You should question everything you see(with your monitor) and everything you read and are told. There is a huge difference to question(be pragmatic) and asking people without experience.

What you should question is, the experience of the people giving advice. Who you should listen to is your monitor. Everything it does is correct and honest. Not so with many people.

Your monitor grew 4 1/2 inches in 6 weeks. Thats your monitor saying, its all good so far, lets see what tomorrow brings.

Again congrats on your results. Cheers

has some stuck shed on the tip of his tail from his last shed. he has already started another shed cycle and its coming along nicely. this tells me my humidity was too low the first time around, correct?

will this shed on his tail come off with his second shed since his second shed is going better then his first, or will it stay stuck on there? i've been keeping his dirt moist and he's dug a nice burrow in the last couple days so i think it should go okay.
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-Marshall
1.1.0 ball pythons
0.0.1 red ackie

To turn the lights off at night..
Dont worry hes a relatively new keeper himself, hes been struggling to keep his own 2 monitors alive and hasnt seen much in growth or anything since he has had them.
You got a monitor, in one months time it has grown 4 inches, its doing more than what the individual who suggested to turn the lights off at night has ever seen in either of his monitors in 1-2 years time.
Theres nothing wrong with 24/7 basking lights, they do so much more for your captive than setting a schedule and making them adhere to it so they have to be out when you want them to.
Also consider that the individual you bought your monitor from bred it, and many generations before it, consider that the person who told you otherwise on the other forum has never had a pair of monitors, let alone bred a single one.