Reptile & Amphibian Forums

In a post on 9 January below, DK posed nine questions for FR, about statements FR has previously made concerning the biology of Australian monitors in the wild. I am sure that many people are interested in responses to those questions. How about it, Frank?

As you know these things can go on forever. So I limit myself to about one days posts, If not, not get anything done. So please, bring it current.

Again no offense, but once they are down, they are out.

Oh boy a test, I love tests, do I get a grade? What if I get them right. But please, if I take this test, then I get to give you two a test. F

Maybe not, but for any details, you should. DK narrowed it down to lacies; from his post, he asked how you supported the following statements.

1. Wild lace monitors grow as quickly as captives.
2. Wild lace monitors remain active and feeding through winter.
3. Hatchlings remain together in colonies and grow up together.
4. Inbreeding is common.
5. Young pair-bonded animals produce most of the young.
6. Adults pair up in winter and share their hide spots.
7. Bonded pairs stay together throughout the warm months.
8. Wild lace monitors multiclutch.
9. Wild lace monitors pair for life.

Please no offense, but those are very poor questions and out of context. Out of context in this case is, which lacie are we talking about, one in the park by DK in Sydney? or the one five K's south of Mt. Garnett, just west of Carins?

The answer to most of them is not a one or the other answer. Its yes under certain circumstances. And no under others.

For instance do the lacies around carins(northern part of their range, that never gets cold), feed year-a-around or any of the questions you ask, then compare that to what happens in the most southern parts of the range. You can take any one of the nine questions and apply this.

The question then becomes, are the northern lacies different then the southern lacies. That raises another question, what about the lacies in the middle of their range? Are they the same or different then either of the two extremes. In this line, are all lacies the same???????????? thru out their entire range???????????? Do they have the same abilities and behaviors?

Do they pair up in winter, yes I have seen it outside of brisbane and I was shown that by a local herpy(herper). Do they muliti clutch, they sure have the ability too, that has been shown by George Horn, in 1988 and by me, for many years now.

The mistake here is, you wanting everything to fit your local lacies(thats to DK) and not lacies in a overall sense. You can ask someone at Wild World if their lacies do what yours do. The answer would be no.

The overall real question is, do they have the ability to do some of these things then the answer is yes. Then the next good question is, Where and under what circumstances would they do these things. That is then followed by, do these conditions exsist in nature and where, then even more importantly, when?

What puzzles me is, you DK, live in Oz and You Sam visit there often, and neither one of you have learned that each year can be very different then other years. There are drought years, wet years, hot years, cold years. Sometimes there is, three to eight years of drought, followed by two wet years, etc, etc. etc. Your beautiful country is noted for having extremes at this. Also the conditions from the extremes of their range are radically different. Knowing this should allow you to understand, that reptiles, in this case lacies, have a range of abilities that reflect all these conditions. This indeed may be the reason that monitors have the ability to multiclutch if the breeding season is long and fruitfull or grow during the offseason if its warm enough or wet enough. Or lastly die, if the conditions are very poor. For both of you, this is very basic stuff.

If you are saying ALL lacies, in all years, from the entire range of lacies, are suppose to all do the exact same things, under all sorts of highly varible conditions leads to the next paragraph.

That leads me to think, either yous two's are dumb as a stone or simply want to fight with me because I SHOW stuff you have not seen. I have to believe its the latter as I am sure you are not that dumb. F

First a quick point, then a longer one.

"If you are saying ALL lacies, in all years, from the entire range of lacies, are suppose to all do the exact same things, under all sorts of highly varible conditions leads to the next paragraph. "

In every one of our discussions, Frank, I have only made reference to my local lace monitor population. Yes, I know it is warmer in Cairns than here and that lace monitors up there would have different parameters to work with.

But, that's off topic. The main point behind my questions below have little to do with where the lace monitors live, more to do with the logistics of measuring long term things on short term visits. Given that you live in Arizona and have been here on a number of trips, totalling around a year, and have divided the time amongst several monitor species, the time spent with lace monitors would have to have been pretty short. How you were able to measure really tricky things in that short period is what I was curious about. The examples I gave were pair bonding for life (or even pair bonding for an entire warm season), whether or not siblings were inbreeding (requiring extensive blood work, not possible on short little holidays), the repeatedly stated 'fact' that a small number of paired individuals were doing all of the breeding, the rest being non-reproductive 'goons' (see inbreeding regarding blood work), the occurance of multiclutching, the growth rate of wild monitors, hatchlings bonding and staying together for extensive periods etc etc. I'm not going to go into details about your claim to have seen courting, mating, egg-laying and hatching in 95% of Australian monitors, in the wild, for I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you weren't being serious at the time.

No doubt many of the readers of this forum would read the above and think it is easily possible, but anyone that has spent a few minutes in the bush looking at wild monitors would know that conclusive proof of any one of the above would make for a lengthy field study on its own. Lengthy being years. Certainly far longer than your entire year in Oz, even if the entire time was spent concentrating on one parameter of one species.

In the end, though, this discussion could go on forever. Most of it has little to do with what people have seen or not seen, experienced or not experienced and more to do with how one interprets what one sees or doesn't see. If someone saw a thousand solitary monitors in hundreds of environments, some would interpret that as seeing nothing, whereas others think a thousand solitary monitors says a lot. If someone found a pair of monitors asleep in a crevice mid winter, some would say they are a bonded pair, others might say they are two animals tolerating each other's presence to share a resource (a good crevice). Someone watching behaviour in captivity may see it as an artefact of captivity, others may see it as a reflection of what happens in the wild. Without watching wild animals for an extensive period of time (not possible on short term trips, considering the parameters we are discussiong, often not even possible with extremely long studies), everyone is jumping to their own conclusions. Those conclusions may be based on watching captives, telemetry studies and/or a bank of information on known biological patterns. We all have different views on the folly of each, so I don't think I need to go into details of who believes what.

What is so very funny to me is, what is this all about???? anything in particular? what, you cannot figure out how I have seen what I have. I could yell at you for hours on that one.

Heres the point, We both have lacies. You have and keep them in a place that they occur in. exactly, within a few blocks, hey? I have them and keep them in a different country and in a totally different habitat. Yet for some reason, I have raised two generations of lacies in the time you have what????????

That is not a contest, its merely a level of understanding and experience. You see, to do generations of any species, reflects a level of understanding of that animal. The fact that its applied and successful, means its accurate. That you have not, means, you do not have that experience. The fact that we are on our fourth generation, means, we have that understanding.

What I dearly would love to understand is, why you do not consider experience important and of use in learning. For instance, I have been in constant contact with many lacies for three plus generations 24/7, 365 for eight solid years.

What that means is, I am exposed to all the things they do, for all that time, from taking a crap to basking to breeding, nesting, egg laying, living, dying, all the things.

You must understand its just like your experience with your captives. Only I finally allowed them to succeed and do it over and over. Do you think by the time you have your fourth generation, you would know just a bit more then you do now???? Do you think you will learn anything. Then please consider along the way, you went in the field and saw things that you learned to recognize during all that exposure to you captives.

If you do not, then please consider, you are a type of person that refuses to learn or thinks they know it all now. Which are you.

I know that I do not know all that much, so I keep looking. I suggest that to you. Leave me the FRIG alone and go figure it out your own dang self.

I do understand from our previous conversations, that you twist and turn everything I say to fit your preconcieved notions. So with that understood, forget everything I ever sad, and merely try and figure out, where on earth did he get all the pics of monitors in nature. Try that, its a simple one, heck I have not shown more the 50 or so different photos, of many species, some in pairs. And even the pic I posted here, a gravid lacie. If you are concerned, why don't you post a pic of a gravid lacie, I mean you live down the street from them. Lets see it. F

First, as I have said a million times. My concern is with captive monitors. That is my context, period.

The information I gave you was givin in a effort to help you with your captive monitors. That you take it out of context is wrong.

Are you afraind my information will ruin your and everyones elses view of lacies is oh so weird. If you do not like it, do not use it. PERIOD. Is it that I keep having success and you don't? That is something you have to ask yourself.

The real question is, what is your problem with your animals. IF you do not have a problem, then whats the problem? Why do you bother to ask me anything? but you keep doing that!!!!

There was never an attempt to make any of it science. So whats your problem.

I request that you leave me alone and worry about yourself, same for Sam, and if someday both of your have some real captive stuff to talk about and show, Yea, yours, not others, then maybe give it a try, until then get your butt to the grindstone.

In the meantime, with my peapoor understanding of lacies, I will be hatching some soon, then I will be posting pics. Then more will be laying eggs and i will post that, then more will hatch, and I will post that, and all with my lack of knowledge and understanding of lacies. Wow, if I can do that without any real knowledge, then whats your problem? and that goes for mister sam too. F

Just curious.

Thats hard to answer, I kept a few in the sixties, I care for them at various reptile shops and zoos that I worked at.

Then i went many years specializing in colubrids and pythons.

Then my son got a small nile from a friend that owned a reptile shop. Then we traded it for an argus.

Then I talked him into getting some small monitors that were just coming in the country, Two friends had them. Then We got some young ones in Dec, and by may we have eggs. Within the next few months we got more eggs. Upon going to the Oct of 92 IRBA show, I had 130 eggs in the incubator. Some monitor guys talked me into giving a talk, I did not want to. The rest has been great with monitors and horrible with monitorphiles. F

you've just answered all of my questions. I'll stop bothering you, now.

They're actually pretty good questions, Frank, and at one time or another you have provided answers to all of them. DK asked what observations (by yourself, or by anyone else) supported the answers you have been giving. Twice now you have failed to provide the data. As your response here suggests, there are between damn few and no observations that can be cited to support many of your claims about the biology and behavior of wild monitors.

Are those observations hard to get? Damn straight they are; as DK notes, people spend years (not the days of your experience)making their best efforts to answer these and similar questions. Much of that work is published, together with the evidence, and anyone who wishes to do so can examine whether the conclusions that are drawn are supported by the evidence that has been presented. That's how science works. It does not work by assertion and anecdote, particularly when someone cannot back up the claims that have been made.

Three choices from here: (1) OK, here's the evidence, let's examine it; (2) There is not enough evidence, I'll stop saying there is; or (3) #$@@&^ the bunch of you and the horses you rode in on, I will keep saying what I want to about the biology of wild monitors.

Great, but sir, what about the pictures. I can bring up the fact I send you a pic of a monitor that you did not even get close to in a proper identication. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm and hahahahahahahahaha At least daniel got close.

I have posted hundreds of pics, of monitors doing all sorts of things, both from captivity and nature, and all you spout is someone else said this and that. SOUR GRAPES DUDE. Show us something other then a stack of numbers, Say man, 200000 observatiuons of a lizard on a tree and what that means, yawn.

Please get real and actually show pics of your wonderful Gouldi and Croc monitors, are you ashamed too. Come on dude, what will it hurt. You see, two can play your silly games. Why don't you add instead of subtract. as far as I can tell, you are a giant negative and do not even have monitors. SHOW US F

I think we just showed everyone, Frank. Stick to captive monitors hereafter, thanks.

SS

Hi Sam,

Of those querried answers, how many will be direct honest responses, and not full of "'I' did this", "'I' let the monitors tell me" and just answer the questions as they were put to him?? That is to say, "About monitors" [not his monitors] and not about himself. That would be nice. Looking forward to reading the responses...
cheers,
mbayless

M, nice to see you're still overwhelmed with jealousy.

How about you talk about YOUR monitors... do you have any???

Would be nice to see some actual results, and not "they said" or "they did" as is prevalent with your posts, articles and other dribble...

Fair is fair, isn't it?

and you are?? Post your name, so I know who you are. I tend not to reply to nameless driblets...and if you do not like what I write, don't read it - nobody is forcing you too. As for jealousy, yes, I am: I would like two working lungs like everybody else, but that is about as far as my jealousy goes.

mbayless

Fair enough, Mark.

I just wish that you guys would wake up and realize that Frank knows MORE about monitors than any of you, and just give him his due credit. Those of us who have taken the time, realize what an amazing mind he has, not just with working with monitors, but understanding reptiles across the board. He has changed the way I handle my beardies, leos, cresteds, heck even roaches. And he's a good person, you have to actually attempt to know that.

Sorry about your health issues, best wishes.

Keith

keith, no one is debating Frank's superior knowledge of captive monitors in any of this.

Hello Keith,

Thanks for clarifying your name. This is not about who knows more than whom, it is about sharing on these forums - and we all do that in our own ways, from novice to experienced keepers, and so on...

I met fr one time for two minutes, and he was the rudest person I have ever met, and that includes all the berkeley parents, hippies and communists Ive met here in berkeley!

In my book, Rudeness is something not tolerated. I have visited this forum for a few years, and his behavior has not changed, towards virtually everyone; yes, he has things to share, but how much "muck" does one have to go through to see what he has to share - I don't know or really care. He is rude, and that is all I know, and I do not care for that either, so I choose not to bother with him whenever possible...this "hobby" is not a pissing contest, it is just a bunch of people from all walks of life sharing about monitors, nothing more.

Yes, some people have alot of experience, and others not so much. We all do this for "fun" right? I know it is fr's business and he takes this more seriously than most, but that is his affair, not mine.

None of us have to like one another, and I for one do not care for (just) a few people who visit these forums - that is human condition and the ways things are...nothing good/bad about that, just the way it is = life. As someone told me the other day, "Everybody has an asshole, and capapble of acting like one, but some people have two!" haha. Some people are just that way, and there is nothing anyone can do about that...we've all met, worked with, worked for people like this before, you tolerate it for as long as you can or have too, and move on as fast as possible = life. I move on....

I share alot of what I have gained with many people, and glad to do so...and will with you too, but not with people who do not know words like, "Please, Thank you, Your Welcome etc..." Is that too much to ask? If it is, then talk to someone else - this is all I am, and have been saying...most communication begins and/or ends with those phrases...= common courtesy.

cheers,
markb