Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello everyone,
I felt like adding my .02 about V. melinus since I'm
trying to start a melinus breeding project. I haven't
read the Vivarium article, but I mean to get ahold
of that issue. I aquired a very nice looking young adult
male V. melinus a few months ago. He definetly likes
'seafood'. Interesting what Mr Bayless mentioned about
them only being active in the morning. That is exactly
the behavior I've noticed. He wakes soon after the lights
come on (7am), and is active for several hours then
retires to his burrow under the substrate by about noon.
I don't know about bitey but they do seem to be a shy
species.

I'm trying to get females, but have had very poor luck
so far. I bought a female a few weeks ago, only to have
UPS employees murder her (I'll save my rant about UPS
for another time). This was my first DOA. I vowed to only
use Delta Dash as I have in the past, but Delta won't ship
to my location til the temps are in the low 80s. The dealer
has one more female, and I'm considering driving to the
next state and picking her up.

Here's a pic of my male melinus showing how much he likes
the camera (and me).

soaking in a tub

very nice looking monitor. i really like those monitors. good luck with them

that is a beautiful monitor!
-----
1.0 Red ackie monitor (Frederick)
0.0.1 Bosc's monitor (don't know yet)
1.2 Chinese water dragons (Gimp, Guap, Basil)
0.0.1 Day gecko (peter)
1.0 Green tree frog (bell)
1.0 Red albino corn snake (kirby)
0.0.1 Ornate Box Turtle (working on it)
1.0 Cavi (Gromit)
0.1 Eqyptian spiny mouse (Cleo)
0.1 Rat (Booger)
0.1 Giant african millipede (Zoe)
1.0 Beta (don't know yet)
0.1 Calico cat (Saffron)

Hi,
Thanx for sharing pic - that is a young one you have there... they were bred in Germany by A, Dedlmar in 2000, and he also bred V. prasinus in 1994; I have english translations of both articles in the files...and he sent me some stunning photos of both parents and babies = BEAUTIFUL!

Oh, and V. melinus are in that anti-social group of varanids that do not always display 'threat-display' when irritated, and will just bite w/out warning - sometimes the 'tines' (= forked tongue parts of the tongue) will be ever-so-slightly at the tip of the lower lip hardly visible, indicative of their going to bite (you)...V. bengalensis, V. indicus, V. komodoensis and V. salvator also do this.

cheers,
mbayless

Hey mark, I would love to see Dedlmar's prasinus paper, if you have it on your computer..otherwise, if you have it on paper, I'd send you the postage/cost of copying, etc... I am also waiting to read that other paper, that I was unable to view on my cpu... Anyways, talk to you later,

bob

Hi Bob,
Sure I can get that to you - it is in my files, not on computer - I have as little as possible on the computer as I do not trust these fu$king things what-so-ever...Ive already lost countless materials because of them, and my lack of knowledge/interest in computers themselves does not help either.... but Dedlmar did the same thing I have been saying all along = you know what I mean...and for him and others it has worked 100%.

cheers Bob,
mbayless

Thanks for the complements on my beautiful melinus, Matthew
and Sera.

Mr. Bayless,
The Germans seem to have a knack for being the first to
breed many monitor species. I would love to get any writings
on melinus. In the early 90s I aquired from Daniel Bennett
a collection of obscure works on varanids in several languages
translated to english. Many accounts of first captive breedings.
I have some obscure publications that are not translated as
well. If I could interest you in some sort of swap, I'd really
appreciate getting more info on V. melinus.

I have noticed that he seldom shows any obvious threat display.
He usually shows his annoyance with my presence by a subtle
protrusion of the tips of the tongue. They seem very similar to
V. indicus don't they?
Thanks,
Neal
-----
pale reason hides the infinite from us

A trade? A trade? did you say a trade? Ooohhh - that I like very much when it comes to Varanus materials....if you send me a list of your articles, then we'll see what we can barter with, ok?
Yes, Please email me with your list of materials....I have Daniels translations in hard copy many years ago, and most of the originals of those articles as well (except 1 I think?)... and would love to see what you have .... as for what I have, well it is now alphabetized by author, and it currently 300 pages long for Varanus, 25 pages for Heloderma, and 12 pages for Lanthanotus, not to mention 2 pages for film-related materials on Varanus/Heloderma/Lanthanotus (in Hollywood related films), i.e "The Giant Gila Monster (1957)", or "Varan" (1961) as well

cheers,
mbayless