Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Well for the last few months Ive been caring for 5 baby savs.
I have housed them all together this entire time except for a two week intervention, when I removed "Allie" and "Bilbo" from the group for weight gain and observation. They have since been re-introduced to the main group and been successful at maintaining body weight. Always the smallest of the group, "Allie" has been a concern of mine because I feared for her being bullied. Usually its she whom is the more aggressive (perhaps out of fear). She never backs down though, the way Ive observed in other intimidation situations. Shes still as scrappy as ever, even the most active of the group. Something occured to me today while wathching them during their morning feed. Although "Allie" is the most active, and aggressive eater, she is LOUSY at hunting her prey. The largest of the group pretty much waits for the prey to walk by, and CHOMP, down the hatch it goes! Meanwhile "Allie" is all over the place with 10 mouthfulls of dirt per every successful hit!
As hatchlings it was so funny to see "Allie" miss her little crickets and grab an arm or tail of a cagemate. Being half their size, she was no more than an accessory, and would be dragged off by them as they would also be pursuing lunch as well! Its easy to understand though how limbs are torn off by littermates with this sort of behaviour. Ive always been carful to watch and intervene in potentially hazardous situations. Funny thing though, "Allie" was the only one to be a biter.
Itll be interesting to se how the group dynamics change as they mature.

My Savannah "Mongo", shared the problem you described with "Allie".
If I fed him anything live, which was limited to hissing roaches, he would concentrate his aim on the roaches legs rather than the thorax. It was amusing to watch him miss, especially when he gave me that "I don't approve of you making me work for my food" look when the insects managed to get away.
Since his aim never got better, I simply decided to feed him all his roaches with tongs.
Of course you also brought up an interesting topic: Group Dynamics.
Since most monitors live solitary lives in nature, aside from meeting once in a while for mating I wonder if enough research had been done to determine how monitors cope living in a group. Do they establish hierarchies? Relationships?
Anyone have thoughts on this?

-Kit

There's an old Varanews out there (I can't seem to find it now) with an article about V. salvator hierarchies specifically at feeding time. In a nutshell, size mattered. Gender didn't play a role, although males were usually larger. This was true for my salvators. I've read about similar observations regarding Komodo monitors. Not sure about Savs though.

Anyone have a bunch of old Varanews, or know how to get reprints - specifically anything on albigularis?

Mark will be able to help you with that, I'm sure.
He's the Varanid Library!
D.

You said "VaraNews": the best varanid newsletter there was....I was Assistant Editor, and wrote I think almost all of the V. albigularis articles for Varanews, so if there is one of those you need, I have them, and I do have ALL the VaraNews backissues, sorry no extras left anymore; but I can make copies of some - others are too fragile to do so with....looking for something specifically? Let me know, Ive got 5000 article of Varanus, all cross indexed by author, species, subject, and to be published in book form when I find a computer expert to dig it out of my computer.....it all got buried in there when the thing crashed....but all Varanews and articles are hard copy and in files here...let me know...
cheers,
mbayless

Yeah, I was sad to see it go. I'm mostly interested in articles on what was once V.albigularis ionidesi (the White Throats w/ Black throats from Tanzania, heh). I'm guessing there's not an index anywhere on the web these days, hopefully I'm wrong.

Glad to hear that your going to publish a book in the future. Can't wait!

Thanks,
Mike

Hello mike,

Yes, it was sad to see VaraNews go...but thats the way it goes sometimes....I miss VaraNews too.

I have ~1000 sources on V. albigularis, maybe 300 or so for Tanzanian V. albigularis...what are you specifically looking for re: this (former) subspecies?? If you read below re: size of BT size, there is very little differences between V. albigularis of RSA and V.a. of central/equatorial Africa (V.a.i.) morphologically, except maybe maximum size, hence scale counts differences....skull wise, they are identical.

Cheers,
mbayless

The only specific article I can think of would be:

Bayless, M.K. 1992. "African Varanids: Diets in Captivity and in the Wild. VaraNews, 2(5):2-3. (Lost it a few years back)

I'm also interested in anything published regarding captive breeding of V. albigularis.

I'm working with my first albigularis. I'm not looking for howto's, but I'm always interested in learning what I can about their behavior in the wild and captivity. Maybe you could recommend something?

Thanks for being such a great V. librarian!

Mike

Hello Mike,
Yes, I know that article well, as I wrote it, and still refer to it, as I did in a post somewhere on here recently...I have that one, and others that may interest you too. Email me (mkbve1792@aol.com) and we can discuss person-person rather in public here....

cheers,
mbayless

I think in nature, she is one meant to be easy pickings, and let the others escape to safety. Just a thought.

Thanks for the story. Do any of them show signs of pairing, or preference for one another?
D.

I havent noticed any terribly significant interaction as of yet. Hopefully Ill be able to observe more insightful interactions as their maturity progresses.
-Michelle