Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Does anyone know the sub-species of the Water Monitor found in Singapore and what is its max length?

ITS v. salvator salvator the nominate form. max size is unknown, but on malaysia in the north, they have reached 10 feet. theres pics of singapore waters in my photo gallery under v.s. salvator. -john
cybersalvator.com

Thanks for the info, do you know which sub-species of salvator the Singaporean one resembles most? Or can you give an estimate on its max length?
Thats a damn nice website you have man, like all the pics. Keep it up.

the singapore salvators cannot be compared to another subspecies in appearance. they are common salvators, with patterns alot like salvators found hundreds of miles away from them. to me, the singapore, peninsula malaysia, north sumatra, and south borneo salvators have little difference. its once you get away from mainland asia and head east toward sulawesi, and the philippines that they are more varied in pattern. -john

Can you tell me where to find a growth chart for Water Monitors. How their age relates to their size? Or can you give me some rough guidelines?

From what I gather from an old friend that was born and raised in Sigapore you are very unlikly to see one over 6 feet in the wild .
I'm sure this is due to limited resources and that most people are terrified of the larger ones (they kill them ? *shrug* before they get much larger ? ) . Expect them to get much larger in captivity =) probably as large as the Malay ones since they are the same species.

My friend just came back from spending a month there and I asked him about this a couple of weeks ago . This is what he told me . He saw many small ones in a lot of the cannals even in the areas with the high concentrations of people . The larger ones he only saw in the preserve/forrest - they would gather together in small groups along the trails and most of the larger ones were in the 5-6 foot range (he also said that when people wnet past these groups of larger monitors they were very scared of them on average). This guy is a herper (keeps snakes) and has a good eye for judging the size of reptiles . I asked what was the largest one he had ever seen and he said even when he spent months in the field/forrest when he served in the Army there he rarely saw one much larger than 6 feet (he also said large retics where very hard to find also but that you could find a lot of them under 12' ).

Stella St.Pierre
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Stella St.Pierre
www.bluetegu.com

The big ones from malaysia are from cameron Highlands, nothing like that in Singapore, where the lizards are strongly suspected of destroying some of the last populations of some pretty birds. There was a student doing an Msc on this but I don't think I have seen their conclusions.
Daniel
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Mampam Conservation

Destroying pretty birds in Singapore? Can't say I've heard of Water Monitors doing that. They'd have to be pretty small ones to climb the trees and get the birds I suppose.

I think I can contribute to this thread as I was born and raised in S'pore. I agree with the above post that many of this wonderful creature that I has come across in the wild i.e drainage or streams are relatively small, about 6' including tails and does not have much body size. I think live rats are harder to catch! lol

However, if you are in S'pore and would like to see a "full-sized" Water. I suggest you visit the Chinese/Japanese Garden. There, you will find a bunch of these dudes roaming around. :>

I remember that when I was younger, I used to be freaked out by the size of these guys, now I am living with 2( 3 very soon ;>)