Okay, so I've had my arguses now since Tuesday. Not terribly long I know, but in that time I've been witnessing some very peculiar behavior. At least to me. Granted I'm not the most experienced Varanid keeper out there...hah, that's a laugh. Actually, almost all of my reptillian experience resides in large snakes or venomous ones. I've always had a great respect for Varanids though, and have kept a few in my earlier times - the typical sav and nile easily bought at a show for $20, and even a blackthroat I kept for nearly a year. I liked the blackthroat's personality, but decided I'd rather wait until I could provide the setup for a lizard more suited to what I like - specifically, the Aussie goanna-type. A friend of mine put up his Argus trio last week, and I made the decision to get them. This trio consisted of 1 adult male, 1 adult female, and 1 juvenile female. And no, I don't need the spiel about how difficult it is to sex monitors, trust me, I'm finding that out myself right now! These sexes are just probables, except for the male who has fathered a clutch before.
I put the smaller individual in her own 55 gal tank (a temporary set up until she's sold - I was just wanting the two adults) and put the adults in a somewhat spacious 8' x 4' x 7' enclosure I "inherited" when I adopted a giant burm a couple years ago. Almost from the get go, the two larger ones have been acting peculiar. And again, this is coming from a snake guy, so this peculiarity may be completely normal to you folks who are experienced with Varanid social behavior. To make a long story short, the female often climbs aboard the male, appearing as though she is trying to copulate with him. To me this seemed odd...the female assuming the male's role. He usually just starts moving when she does this, not trying to fight her off necessarily but just move. They also really check each other over at times, appearing to intently scent each other's heads, bodies, etc. I've even seen the female nip the male a little while doing this. Not a hard bite or anything, just a curiosity bite...weird.
The attempted copulation thing was what was really throwing me. I mean, if they are 1.1, why on earth would she assume the male's position unless she was actually a male herself. This is understandable, considering how difficult monitors are to sex, but would still be somewhat disappointing. However, after getting some feedback from some people 'in the know' (including FR), mounting each other doesn't always have to do with sex, but rather is more of a dominance thing. This is understandable. Yesterday, I was able to visit a while with the herpetology professor at my university who is doing work with Acanthurus monitors. While we were looking at the animals, sure enough, in the tank with a for sure pair, we saw her climb onto him and do the exact same thing my guys do. Okay, so mystery solved...sorta. Her getting on his back doesn't necessarily mean she's a he or anything, it's just a dominance thing.
So now I'm just sitting back and enjoying the show. They never do anything uninteresting, be in changing position while basking, roaming the cage, eating (wow!!), etc.
If any of you other argus folks read this and want to comment that my observations jive with your observations, please feel free to do so. I'm attaching some photos to the bottom here. Enjoy.
Male
Female
Smaller Female
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Chance Duncan
www.rivervalleyexotics.com
