Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I figured it out on 2 waters and my one friend has separated them as they are both males. Yet the neat thing is from 3 boscs that appeared to be a 2.1 group, Ive popped 2 to discover that the one appearing to be female (going by head shape tail shape and size)is a male, the one appearing to be a male by thses features is a female, the smallest stalkiest of the group I couldnt pop (too phyically young??)but it is starting to look female so far.

All monitors pop, from the day they hatch. The young ones are by far the easist. The Key is, to learn the difference between what pops. As both males and females pop. Now to make it a little more testy, some species are different, and the females do not pop. But those species are rare.

The key is experience, with time, hopefully the ones you call male will father young ones, and the ones you call females, will do the egg laying thing.

Simply to get something to pop out, is only a little more meaningful then nothing.

I have seen many newbie expert poppers, totally fail, once they had to pop thirty individuals of one species at one time. They were really good with two, what happened.

Lastly, popping is great, but its only part of the sexing procedure. Keep on truchin, F

I know the difference between a hemipene popping and a hemiclitori, but the one bosc is difficult to pop as well theres major shape difference between the other 2 bosc. Its neat that the 2 with outward appearances of both sex were in reality the opposite sex each, makes ya think twice about picking them by head shape tail shape etc. Ill post pics of the popping tonight. These 3 animals were free animals we picked up this fall near Washington DC. This case the male looked like a female outwardly (narrower thinner head, thinner tail base, but a bigger appetite) and the females looked male outwardly (thick tail bases, thicker wider heads). It goes to show that the best way to identify them if you cant see an recognize full eversions or pop them properly and recognize what you pop, is that somewhat healthy females produce eggs, and healthy males dont. But again that may be why so many "male" monitors are out there, they arent making eggs no matter what sex they are.

But you don't. When you get some experience, you will understand, that all that shape difference is not all that reliable. It really does boil down to whom lays the eggs.

You see hemipene shape is age/sex/location/and who knows what dependant. Thats kinda what experience tells ya.

When I read this species IS like this and that IS like that, I kinda scratch my head. As it just doesn't seem to be that way in practice. I mean even in nature, I went popping gouldi in many different localities and found they were all different.

Even to a point of hatching five males, raising them to adults and their hemipenes are all different. So please, don't take it as something wrong with you, theres just more to it then you think.

Once you get the hang of it and have seen the range a species contains, then you can get a feel for what is male.

Lastly, I have tested all sorts of expert monitor hemipene poppers, when they come to visit, and all have failed with known animals. Some failed a lot. F

Do you happen to have pictures to show the differences between the hemipenes of the five males you raised? Do you have pictures of the hemipenal differences of the gouldis you popped in different localities and can you provide a general description of those different localities?
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^x^ Bloodbat ^x^

Your visual inspection of a partially everted monitor hemipenis is not perfect in any way. When a real scientist studies hemipenal variation in a species, there is a necessary protocol to follow to ensure that each hemipenis is inflated in as cloas to an identical manner as possible. Partial eversions that you are seeing by manually 'popping' an animal don't allow you to accurately compare each animal to another (especially in an uncontrolled wild setting!!). You should know that each hemipenis is everting to a different extent, and your comparisons will only be as valid as your data collection methods. Yes, of course there is variation (variation is inherent to biological organisms), but you are exagerrating intraspecific and interpopulational variation to an extent. Scientific hempipene evaluations are done by injecting surgically removed organs to a specific degree, then taking a variety of measurements to identify similarities and differences.