Hmmm....I'll just throw some random thoughts out here and maybe some more organized thoughts will come to me later. First, Tegus seem to be the only "large" land predators wherever they occur. Compare this with the African varanids such as the various grassland monitors (Bosc's, BT's and WT's) as well as the Niles. Just like the Tegus, they are highly efficient and opportunistic predators/scavengers in the wild and this translates to "hardier" in captivity. I think the same can be said of many of the Aussie species. In contrast many (most?) of the Asian and Indonesian varanids seem to be more specialists than generalists. Of course the one big (literally and figuratively) exception would be the Water monitors who have a huge range and once past the baby stage make very hardy captives as well with increased captive breeding occurring as well. I also think that the Croc monitor does so well in captivity because it too is more opportunistic and is also the apex predator in it's natural habitat. Not sure if any of this makes any sense, but in any case it's an interesting subject that I have pondered on in the past as well.
>>I have spent a couple of weeks reading several published articles about the Convergent Evolution between Monitors and Tegus.
>>Basically I had hoped that understanding the biological similarities between varanids and Tegus could open up some insights into their captive husbandry, and while these papers appear to confirm that the South American ecology required an opportunistic predator/scavenger and thus elevated the small Teiids into the Tegus we have today, I am still perplexed by the fact that Tegus in captivity consume just about everything (Processed/Whole Foods/Cooked Foods) while captive Varanids do not fare so well on such diets.
>>Feed a monitor SDZ diet and in a handful of years they stop breeding, feed a Tegu the same diet and they multiply and thrive on the stuff.
>>In the wild however, both Monitors and Tegus eat essentially the same range of foods, so what changes in captivity?
>>I know I'm making some huge assumptions, but I am always wondering about these things. Unfortunately specific information about how Varanids and Tegus differ is hard to come by. Anyone else care to tackle this topic?
>>
>>-Kit
