Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello. I am new to this forum. About 20 years ago I kept various monitors and did so for about 10 years. I had a few argus back then but that was long ago. I also worked at the Cincinnati Zoo's reptile house for a short time...although to be honest they were not doing much with monitors besides advertising their Komodo Dragons. In fact, I think those were the only varanids they even had back then. It was long ago.

Anyway, I decided to get a few of these interesting reptiles to "renew" this extinct part of my life even if only as a hobby. I am NOT interested in becoming obsessed with them but I would like to make a few contacts with some experienced people that are accomplishing successful breedings with these interesting varanids. Ever since I "retired" from my retile collection (about 10 years ago) I lost all my contacts as I have moved and honestly wasn't interested as I was doing other things. I do still have some of my old photos around here somewhere though. Everything was top class in my keeps and part of the reason I lost interest was because so many people simply kept there animals in very poor condition back then and it was frustrating. Today it looks a little better (on the surface, but who knows...it probably isn't...as most people are rather sloppy).

BUT>>> my question is this. Has anyone here ever done business with evansstahls? How are his flavirufus? I was under the impression (back then if memory serves me correctly we called them either Varanus gould's/gouldi, Varanus gouldi flavirufus, and Vananus panoptes horni...or something. I may be mistaken. Anyway, I thought the panoptes/argus had banded tails while the gould's and flavi's had yellow fairly unbanded tails, but all I see now is banded tails. Are all these these flavi's crossed? How do you tell the differences between them. I don't really care which ones I have to be honest, but I would like to know...and it has been a long time.

Thank you for your help.

Heres what Ive figured out since they have reclassified etc these creatures, and how to tell them apart..
This is mine, male flavi-argus cross..


Flavi-argus combine some good and some bad features of both the flavirufus (desert sand monitor) and the argus (V. panoptes, flood plain monitor). The appetite of the argus, some of the color and markings from both (much prettier than an argus), in fact the more flavi the better they look.
The flavirufus is more expensive and harder to find, smaller, more colorful and may actually have argus or goulds crossed into them..
V.gouldi, another pretty lizard, also smaller than argus, some looking similar to the flavi and some having reddish or yellowish or orangish markings. Its hard for me to tell differences between gouldi and flavirufus in some cases.
Also 3 way crosses are available from FR, very beautiful creatures.
These 3 are argus (panoptes).


All 3 have dark stripes on the tail ends, and the "thousand eyes" pattern (panoptes).

I started breeding (for fun, not $) Argus monitors 2 years ago. They are the Varanus panoptes horni (New Guinea subspec). They are the most commonly seen of this confusing group in the US. There are also some Argus x Flavi crosses available. You wont find Australian V.panoptes or V.p. rubidus (redder coloration from arid, more desert and scrub Australia) hardly ever. There is someone in europe that breeds and sells the offspring, dont even know his name. And obviously, nothing actually comes out of Australia-all captive stock. The nomenclature has changed since 10 years ago and it is still not 100% agreed upon-still see literature calling argus gouldi too. V.p. horni are slightly smaller than Aussie counterpart V.p./rubidus and the horni have yellow and black banding to tail tip. Also slight difference in skull shape and pattern at the shoulder girdle. Flavirufus is the name most accepted for "sand goannas" or "racehorse goannas" in Australia that raid picnics and run across roads alot. Gouldii is becoming the antiquated name, i think-but,as i said, both naming systems are debatable still today. If you are in the US and looking for one of these, you will find V.p. horni #1 and Flavi crosses # 2. Flavi are prettier patterned with yellow and the spotting is larger clusters vs panoptes-which have true ocelli pattern (black ringed white or yellow cicles that look like eyes...hence the 1000 eyes=Argus from mythology. Hope this helps you vs confusing you. jburokas@hotmail.com if you have any ?s or want to see some pics of my hatchling V.p. horni. good luck

The 2 are adults, the male in the background is 5ft long with a few inches or so of tail missing, very very big argus, appears to be panoptes/ hornii, where as the much smaller female is reddish, appears to be rubidus, who knows. Both were given to him.

This is a pretty male argus he had also.