Reptile & Amphibian Forums

well its been a month since i got my blue tailed and hes grown about an inch and hes shed 4 times, its amazing how fast they grow. anyway this time his skin is alot whiter than usual. is this normal? im used to seeing theres spots break up and more yellowish blushing. i put a pic so you can see what im talking about but it looks much whiter in person. i found this odd.

Seems like the skin is normal.

Congrats, very nice monitor!

Any full body shots?

yes i do, well i just took some lol. hes still shedding and the pictures arent to great but i tried. he doesnt like to sit still very long lol. here he is.

Most all varanids change as they grow. The one you have looks like its going to be a very lite individual. You were lucky.

As monitors age, they dull out or become darker as they get older. Maybe yours will continue to lighten up. I hatched a blackheaded python that turned albino as it got older, who knows?

That is an extremely beautiful blue tail, congrats on that. I look forard to seeing pics of it as it progresses.

Will

Thanks, from when I got it I noticed it stood out more than the rest of the blue tails I saw I how it does keep getting lighter. I was beginning to get worried cause I have never seen that which is why I asked incase this was a sign of bad husbandry I was thinking maybe there can be too much ammonia but I clean outpoop and un eaten food daily.
FR, I dont know about black headed pythons much but I know ball pythons when they carry the albino gene they tend to lighten up as they get bigger and yellowish but never turn albino, that is awesome! Any pics?

that's a beautiful Bluetail.My two Bluetails are different colored, ones dark and oneslighter with that faded look between the ocelli like yours definitely not that light,or with such bright yellow ocelli.Good choice

Well here they are. First are 2 pics from when I first got him, you can see how dark he was but his spots were so bright. Then its pics of him now. Awsome change. I would love to learn enough to breed them cause who knows, it my be genetic? I don't know much about monitors breeding and genetics but I know ball python genetics and I know there might be a possibility. But I can see the hard part is geting these monitors to breed and if the do to get them to lay must be more difficult! Plus If I'm clear on this no one has bred v. Doreanus? I have plenty of time to study them though and I think its important we all do. i'd love to talk about this with you all. Anyway here are the pics.

I believe there have been a couple successful breedings of doreanus, but being a largely WC monitor, most of them get sold to inexperienced keepers. I imagine its really hard to justify the cost to breed the animal then attempt to sell the offspring to cover your costs when people can buy them for about $200 at a herp show. Plus all the internal damage these animals suffer from being collected and stored for who knows how long before being shipped here, puts the keeper at an immediate disadvantage. You might luck out and get a decent animal, but the odds are against you, then getting to find a good working pair? The odds increase again. Then say you do find two healthy animals, of opposite sex, then you have to house and feed them until they reach a size to be able to breed, then you have to figure out nesting. What temps, shape, feel, material, humidity, will the female want to lay. That's a whole lotta work for the average keeper.

And unfortunately I think (just my opinion on all this stuff) most people are just happy that their monitor eats, let alone all the rest.

Either way you got a cool little guy there. Good luck with him!!

Mike

I never took anything besides nesting and keeping the monitors healhy till the apropriate age and size into consideration but I will definatley try. And yes very unfortunatley we think alike tinking most people have there hands full just keeping monitors not thinking about breeding. I for one wouldn't breed for the money, more so for the satisfaction and the feeling of fulfilment because succesful breeding would mean optimum conditions and great husbandry. That is pay off enough for me. Thanks for opening my eyes a bit more I appreciate it.