Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Over and over again! they cant be sexed, hahahahahahahaha!

Which really means in lots, they can't be, not all of them.

I have not had to much trouble sexing monitors, with very good results. A certain percentage of individuals are easy. Lets say, we have thirty hatchlings, I could at times pair up close to half of them. But the problem is not with that half, its with the other half???????

The problem is, what about the other half????

The problem is, you can guess and only be off a little. They are either males or females. By guessing, you should consistantly be around 50% accurate(call them all one sex) you most likely can beat that 50% by calling all of them males.

So, what good is it, if you cannot be 100%, when guessing is 50%. So you can pick out a few pairs, does that make us much better then 50% accurate for the whole lot.

Also, the ability constantly increases with age. The percentages go up after about a month of age, but again, its not 100%, so again, its not of much use to the individuals that you are not sure of.

So yes, some individuals are very easy to sex, at a very young age. While others are not so easy. So, all and all, monitors cannot be sexed, not 100% accurate of 100% of the individuals. Nice pics, thanks FR

You are so right, Aphrodite!
But given a chance peoples should choose readily sexable monitors.
I have a feeling we are producing most of the Aphrodite’s.
ESD (environment sex determination) may well be the key to prevent this Syndrome, iv found that humidity was determining not temperature, I will keep at it until I have answers.

Not to confuse the issue, but, monitors are not turtles, yet!!!!! At least its not been seen that temps during incubation effect the sex, with monitors. Also, humidity has not been shown to do so either.

With turtles, temps have been shown to have an effect, but its not 100%. If you incubate for females, you get mostly females, if you incubate for males, you get mostly males. Not all females or all males.

Again nice pics thanks FR

Sorry about the photo, I just wanted to show an example of what you where talking about, I didn’t have any such monitors at hand but I have incubated turtles that clearly shows this condition, as you know this specie is not TSD however a steady humidity level of 80% proved that they are ESD, I think there’s a possibility that monitors are ESD also, and by incubating them at a constant humidity might produce asexed animals. In any case I will be able to offer more pertinent information by the next calendar year. Aim sharing this with you because you have the possibilities to experiment with this also, just for fun.