Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I made this comment in a prior post, surely I was only joking as there are ladies that can handle niloticus better then I will ever, one of those ladies is Nicole Viloteau (the dragon lady) back in the old days when niloticus was sold as water monitors (witch they are) however this terminologies confused them with salvator witch is also a water monitor. Niloticus has always been one of the least expensive monitors, therefore many peoples obtained them as first varanids, unfortunately for a novice its hard to appreciate the character of this beast, so most would soon move on to other monitors, often escalating to the rarer types soon forgetting there first encounter with this formidable beast. In my case when I started with varanids it was salvator indicus and jobiensis all the way, when I got my first niloticus wow 3 days 27 bites latter that’s it for me bye bye! A few years latter I was talking to this French woman (Nicole) she was a snake freak but kept a niloticus (baltazar) as pet, she carried this monitor in her hand bag every where, even in restaurants and would let everyone pet him, I think you can see a photo of her kissing baltazar in her book (la femme aux serpents) she also kept some mertensis witch I latter acquired from a third party, anyways I gave in and obtained an other niloticus (crazy lizard) this time following Nicole advice, I was determined to keep him for ever, aim a shame to admit this poor monitor was if fact my garbage can, every leftover was his, and this lasted more then 15 years. The crazy monitor turned out to be an ornatus female, but theirs more she turned out to be my best and most rewarding captive iv ever owned, she died last year! its her skull I displayed the other day, a grate lost for me, but she lives on thru her 2 generation hatchlings that hatched 2 weeks ago, kind of a birthday present for me. Took some nice photos with my 35mm and will post ASAP. Meanwhile enjoy Nicole hanging around on Komodo. Sorry for the long post but these anecdotes are part of this hobby, aim sure all of you have them too!
Niloticus are like old cars when you age, they bring nostalgia.

Glad to hear about the eggs. I had a niloticus and ornatus but both were very bad examples of imports and both died young no matter what I did for them. Ive had good experiences with friends niles though.