Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Your monitors are simply beautiful DK! Especially the ones in the first and fifth pics. What monitor species are they? I've never seen ones with so much color! Do you breed them? Have a website?
Again awsome pics!

Thanks. They are all lace monitors. Haven't bred them, yet. One of the females (I had only one female at the time) laid eggs last year but I was in hospital at the time and lost them (they got eaten). I have a feeling they were infertile, anyway.

Do all lace monitors look similar to yours? Or are yours a seperate subspecies/different variety?
Let me know when you decide to breed them!

lace monitors do vary a lot (part of the reason for their latin name, Varanus varius), but there seem to be trends toward certain colour patterns in certain areas. Within those areas, though, animals may be brightly coloured or relatively dull, even though they share the same general pattern. My animals are pretty typical for Sydney animals in pattern and colour, although one is a bit different and I think one of his parents may have been from further up the coast.

Although the above applies to the 'common' form of the lace monitor, there is a distinct banded form (the 'bells' form) that occurs to the west of their range and on some parts of the coast in the middle of the range. This form has broad bands of yellow and black, rather than the narrow bands or speckling seen on the 'common' form. Crossing one of these with the more common colour form doesn't produce a blend of the two, either. The offspring are either broad banded or narrow banded/speckled.

So most of the pics I've seen must have been of the banded (Bells) form. Or maybe you just take better pictures than other people . Thanks for the info. Maybe I'll look into lace monitors!
Again beautiful monitors.

most of the pics you would have seen would be of the 'common' form

I was referring to pics on the web, not yours. But thanks for the clarification.