First let me say, this is only for your consideration. Its not meant as something you should take as gospel. Hopefully this can create useful conversation.
About the term,"nocturnal"
or diurnal, crespuscular). I believe these terms are often misused in trying to understand reptiles or animals in general. People seem to apply it as a adjective to a animal or species. For instance, this animal or species is, nocturnal, like bats for instance. While we all understand, bats are nocturnal, that is, they come out at night. What happens if they come "out" in the day? Are they no longer nocturnal?
To understand bats, how does nocturnal discribe what bats are doing in caves and other such places. If you have ever been in bat caves, they spend a great deal of time flying around, interacting with eachother and simple general squabbling. I bring this up, because it seems bats, hunt outside at night and breed, socialize(fight/squabble/nurse, etc) inside. While inside, they also sleep. But sleeping is only a certain percentage of the time spend inside. So in reality, bats may not be nocturnal, just some of their behaviors, like hunting for food.
I think its easier to understand bats, when you think of their behaviors as being nocturnal or diurnal.
To understand this even more, does each individual bat hunt the entire night? or does each individual bat hunt until its secures its food? Then what does the bat do? just fly around all night, or return to its roost in the cave? Please remember, this is to allow you to think.
I hope that using a bat as an example will allow you to think. The reason I use a bat is, often people get all romatic about the actual subject and "get stupid" about the real subject.
The subject is monitors.
This analogy applys to monitors very well, they are neither nocturnal or diurnal. Instead, they encompass behaviors that include these descriptive terms.
You could say, varanids are predominately diurnal feeders, that would be accurate. Or they are predominately active(out) in the day(diurnal), in the spring and fall, but in summer when its very hot, they are active(out) commonly at night(nocturnal). Please understand, the monitor is trying to accomplish tasks, and the external conditions(temps and humidity) dictate whether the monitor can do that, either in the day(diurnal) or at night(nocturnal).
Prey usage also dictates when varanids are actively hunting, and sometimes this includes prey thats encountered at night.
I hope you are starting to realize, that nocturnal and diurnal are adjectives for behavior and not the actual monitor.
The reason the monitor from the post below was moving at night, was not because the monitor "is" nocturnal or diurnal, it moved at night because, it was forced to by enviornmental conditions. The presence of people forced the monitor to employe normal natural behaviors and move(accomplish needed tasks) at night.
Now to photoperiod. Photoperiod is directly related to the above. The reason I say this is, unlike plants that have roots and are stuck in one place all the time. Monitors are not exposed to lite or dark in a set manner. They are exposed to lite for small periods of time. I will take a leap here and say, I never heard of any monitor that had proper temp and hunidity choices, stay in the lite(sun, bulb) the entire time it was up/on.
I believe, monitors, only use a very small portion of available daylite, the rest of the time, they are secure in dark places. Dark places are burrows, hollows, cracks, crevices, etc. Please consider, like a bat, monitors are not always sleeping in these hiding places, they are in these places the majority of their lifes, I wonder if theres more then sleep going on???
To change the subject a tiny bit, I suggest that monitors or animals in general do not understand the sun and its photo-period as we do. Or even as rooted plants do. They understand it as a tool to accomplish tasks. For instance, what do you imagine would happen, if you supplied your captives with lite(diurnal) and cold temperatures, alternated with heat and dark(nocturnal)? Do you think the captives will bask in the cold or come out at night when its hot? I am cheating, as I know the answer to this one, hahahahahahaha, you should try it.
So, keeping in mind, that monitors are not restricted(rooted like plants) to be exposed to the effects of the bright part of photoperiod, but may be more interested in the product of lite(heat to a point) then the lite itself. I often wondered why I commonly see more varanids, out and active on hot/warm cloudy days, then on cold bright days. I get the feeling, its not about lite. But then, what do I know? Thanks for your consideration, FR
