Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have noticed with my monitors that regardles of what time the lights come on, that they are active at different times of the day.
I have a Yellow Monitor (V. Melinus) that is what one would call a "morning person". It will come out of its burrows very early in the morning, bask, eat, swim around his mini lagoon, etc. etc. It then remains active for 3-4 hours and retreats to its burrows for the rest of the day. I have even found it active on a few occasions before there is any ambient light. In that enclosure the night time temps are in the upper 70's, and yet I have observed this monitor "waiting" on its basking area for the lights to turn on.
I also just recently bought an Argus Flavi cross. Now this one doesn't emerge from it's burrows until mid afternoon, about 4-5 p.m. I have adjusted the timer on it's enclosure to stay on later (turns off about 9:30 p.m.) and I am thinking about going even later as it is still active at that time.
I guess what it boils down to is that I get to look at two empty enclosures for a better part of the day!

I have a couple melinus and I have observed similar behaviors. They are kept separately, one is a young adult male the other a juvenile and probably male. The lights go on at 7am, and off at 7pm. No heating is provided at night and the enclosures are quite dark. Night temps are 75-80 F. One could almost set their watch to the activities of the juvenile. He always gets up 30 min to an hour before the lights come on and soaks/swims for awhile. If I have left food for him, he will also eat. When the lights come on he basks and is active for a few hours. He is always burrowed in by noon and I rarely see him again until the next day. The older ones behavior is somewhat more unpredictable, but he usually gets up in the morning and is never up for more than a few hours. Occasionally he is up in the afternoon. Some days he doesn't come out at all. Just this evening he came out to bask about fifteen mins before the lights went off. After the lights were out he soaked/swam for awhile and then roamed around for a bit.

I saw the pic of your Argus/flavi in the previous post. He is a fine looking animal and I'm sure you will enjoy him. Maybe he will spend more time out after he has had more time to acclimate to his new surroundings.
Peace,
Neal

-----
pale reason hides the infinite from us

NE, you hit the nail on the head with the melinus behavior. That is exactly what mine does. The Argus Flavi cross is spending more time out now, but still emerges in the late afternoon and will stay out until the lights go out. I kept the lighting on even later last night and he was active until they went out at 10:30 p.m.
Thanks for the info on your melinus. mine is a juvenile about 16" long and I am unsure about the sex.