Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This is a question for FR and any other old-timers who were around and involved with the herp trade back in the early 1990s.

I was wondering how dealers/breeders in the US concluded that there were both V. t. tristis and V. t. orientalis in the US hobby? What methods/physical features were used to identify and distinguish between these specimens and assign them to separate subspecies?

Any feedback would be much appreciated.

My wife just laughed at the old timer comment.

Yes I was there, as I was the first to breed those dang things, the TT's(in the states)

The original TO's came out of germany through Ron Tremper from Bernie. I believe.

At that time there were lots and lots of ozzie varanids aimlessly floating around the reptile show circut. Mostly in the hands of snake guys.

I localed through a fellow here, a trio of tristis tristis, and I traded for them. Yet the fellow never gave them to me until we were at the orlando show.

It was suppose to be 1.2 but later turned out to be 0.3. I then found a beautiful male at the San Diego show. I then produced many many of them.

Then Doug Price located another beautiful male. He traded me for some females and off and running was his tristis.

Now for the bad part. Like with ackies, most here only considered them dark and lite of the same thing so they were crossed commonly.

Now I have not seen what I would call and pure phenotypic either one of these.

ALso, the discriptions in books are very wrong. One thing I learned in my trips to oz. was, all populations of ALL varanids are highly varible. So if you look at Tristis. In areas where theres only Tristis, you can find not so tristis individauls. but also individuals that looked orientalis. That is, there are also individuals with occeli. or in areas of only orientalis, there are blackheaded individuals or at least indivduals that are tweeners.

Then the real confusion starts. There are many many many locals where both types occur on the same rock or tree. Then there are also unknown to book types ALL OVER THE PLACE.

For instance, i found blue ones with orange bands. hmmmmmmmmmm Or the Alice blacks that have reddesh heads and chin markings.

Or the giant areas of tristis that are not either tt's or to's

So I fear, we have lost the true phenotypes in the the states. But I am not sure that they ever exsisted.

My belief is, TO's developed their pattern from life on rocks. TT's from trees. But now, both live in both.

Phenotypic Tristis, are amazing, as are Phenotypic orientalis.

On a side note, the most magnificent varanid I ever saw in Oz was a large male orientalis that was BLUE, with RED markings, and had a GOLD head, gold legs and a gold tail. I almost crapped my pants.

Of course those giant western Blacks are one amazing varanid too. Cheers

Thanks for the info.

The information I was really getting at was how did you/others determine whether an individual was a V. tristis tristis or V. orientalis in the beginning, given the widespread natural variation in the species- as in what physical features were used to come to these determinations. The subspecies themselves are very poorly/loosely-defined, so who's to say that the animals you originally labeled were indeed tristis rather than orientalis, and vice-versa?

I'm looking for a few

Thats an easy one. We researched the subject. Read the books, checked the keys, Talked to people, in both europe and Australia.

I am not sure what your asking, it seems baited.

Do I agree with those species names, I answered that in my previous post. I think literature is very very weak when it comes to all monitors, muchless Ozzie monitors.

In my visits to australia, I found many many undiscribed varanids. As well as pythons, elapids, and my god the undiscribed lizards.

Of all the groups, tristis is the best discribed, hahahahahahahahahahaha. Groups like the gouldi group need lots of work, as well as Acanthurus, and the nub tailed monitors, brevis, kingorum, primordius, western storrs, gilleni, bushi and caudolineatus are in a GIANT need of work.

But that work is not done, so all we have is what we have. So until we have something better, we got what we got.

I can see how there is some question, as i mentioned in my first post. The pictures I see are not what started here.