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Do monitors ever hunt at night or is their vision not good enough for that? Mine typically go to bed around midnight or 1 am and don't get up until about noon. But the thing is their lights are on 24/7 in the winter. They hide in their dark hides to sleep....Another reason mine are night owls is I typically feed them at that late hour.

I notice they often confuse hands for food and they will follow shiny objects around like a bass following a lure. Their vision is defineatly not as good as a humans I don't think. They don't seem to be morning lizards.

Nice questions. We have lacies that hunt in the dark at night in the hotter part of the summer. I have also seen several species cross the road at night.

About their eyesight, its different then ours. They seem to have superior vision at distance, like hawks. But up close and in particular bright lite, they seem to only see movement.

Up close they seem to rely on smell or tast to verify what it is.

About monitors a sleeping. I have asked this question a million times. How do they sleep? and no one can provide a real answer. Like do they sleep 8 hours at a time. Or short naps, etc etc etc. It appears to me. They do not give a crap about our type of sleeping pattern. They do whats advantagous to them.

In nature in their average enviornment, they are indeed early mourning and late afternoon creatures, spending the rest of the time inside something. Notice I did not say sleeping.

In general the vast majority if wild monitors are Inside something at any given time. Much like reptiles here. Even when they are "out" only some are out, at any given time.

What they do in captivity is very dependant on what we do. They will learn when feeding time is, or when you come home, etc etc. And will react if temps are there to support them. Cheers

I think its like you suspect...they are somewhat flexible about their sleep. If you saw them crossing the road at night they must be looking for food. Mine are defineatly on my schedule I think. They wake up when I get home from work... They see me as the giant two legged thing that feeds them. I try to feed them once a day or so.

I think creatures like rattlesnakes and tarantulas could find prey on some of the darkest nights quite easily. Monitors probably could too but not as easily as the above mentioned but I have not put that one to the test.

The twilight goanna is another long-tailed rock-dwelling species. It has a much larger distribution than Glauert's goanna. inhabiting the far north of Western Australia, Northern Territory and Queensland but is absent from the Cape York Peninsula. They also inhabit a number of islands off the northern coast. V.glebopalma is one of the most intriguing of the goannas. They are said to be common in many areas but are rarely seen (e.g. Schmida 1985; Gow 1981). The scientific name of this species refers to the shiny black pads found on the underside of the feet (Chapter 4). Its common name is derived from its habit of foraging after sunset, a unique behaviour among varanids (Christian 1977, Shea et al 1988). Although there are records of other species being active occasionally at night (e.g. Auffenberg 1981 for V.komodoensis; Gaulke 1992a for V.salvator) none seem to move regularly during the hours of darkness. The twilight monitor is not exclusively crepuscular and can be sighted throughout the day (Valentic 1988).

This is a text taken from Mampam site on the Glebopalmas. So I guess some will hunt at dusk/night. With the helodermas their smell is so great that even during brumation/hibernatin in gilas they will get active when I would thaw out rodents for the monitors. I think their sight initiates hunting and their smell takes over, remember some of the varanids are known to scavenge which can be done at night [strictly smell] with less risk for the monitor being seen by hawks or other predators.
Bob

I agree with Frank on the eyesight. If I hold a cricket on the opposite side of my 5 foot cage he's on, he barely has to gaze at it before he's on the thing. But if I put one right up in his face, it will hesitate for a moment, smell, and finally grab it.

My monitor also has a 24/7 light cycle and goes inactive from around 1 to 3 in the morning until noon or so. When we first received him, he was constantly on the move hunting, and we only fed him in the afternoon. He really doesn't get up and start trotting around until about 1 or 2pm. Sometimes, even for me its hard to believe Varanids are as smart as they are.

Jason

My V Macraei will forage at night. I keep my flood lights on 24 hours and have the fluorescent lights on a 12/12 cycle.

Steve - sdi