Reptile & Amphibian Forums

could it be they are social it captivity because they feel its them vs. the keeper or feel safe close to something they reconize?

I have heard many stories of Komodos acting like puppy dogs to the keeper.

They hear or see the keeper open the door to the cage and they come over and practically pant waiting for the keeper to scratch their head and neck in an affectionate way.

Hi,
As has been posted here numerous times, varanids do recognize their keepers visually and auditory, as do tortoises as well. As fortheir socialness, those who choose to call them social, do so, and those who do not, won't....so whatever you call them, I do not see them as being 'social' to a keeper, but are merely a source of food resources, heat, and of anxiety sometimes as well...

I did post what 5 perameters ethologists go by considering an animal as social or not, and varanids do not meet those requirements, but do engage in some of the 5 steps mentioned - does that make them social? Maybe yes, maybe no. It is a provocative issue, and I am sure in all the field notes of many herpetologists there are evidence for both yes and no - but it is a new idea to Varanidae, and with new ideas comes skepticism, and open arms as well.

cheers,
mbayless

some behaviors i've noticed. i have a tame tegu that used to really like to get out of his cage and play. i often took him out and handled him. it got to where i would go near his cage and he would go stretch up leaning on the side of the cage where i was in the room. it looked like he was trying to get me to take him out of the cage. now when out i used to also let him run around. so i always felt like this behavior may not have really been love for me. he was more like a dog trying to get you to take him for a walk. still he impressed me. i still have him, but he doesn't do it any more. i think he likes his cage more now.
i have some ornate niles that i play with regularly. i am really very close to them. they are very tame around me and i feel as if their is a real bond between us. if other people come over though they get nervous and they want to go back to their cages. is as if they only feel comfortable if i'm handling them. one of them is a lot better around other peoile than the other. the other is bigger and a lot more aggressive. i have shown my lizards at shows. the big ornate is a real crowd pleaser because he get real aggravated with the crowd (huffs and puffs, slams his tail against the side of the cage. stil he lets me pick him up and calm him. it's like he's not upset with me just the strangers. the crowd love him. it's weird.

The behaviour shown by your tegu probably wasn't imagined. My male lace monitor does exactly that every morning. When I emerge from my room to have a shave and shower, his head pops up. By the time I come out of the shower, he is up against the corner of the sliding glass door, awaiting to be let out. I open the door, put my hand down and he starts to climb up by raising an arm - which I grab, then haul him out and let him loose until I go to work.

When I get home at night, my monitors are usually asleep, but the male will often awaken to the sounds of me bumping around the place and will head for the door in anticipation of his evening cruise around. If I am on the sofa watching tv and he starts to cool down, he'll often crawl up onto me and sprawl out for warmth. He's come to see me as a source of belly heat.

As trusting as he is of me, I don't get, nor expect, any sense of affection from him (it's unrequited affection on my part - he's my favourite monitor). I'm just a useful bit of furniture in his world, one that is also a source of food.

Interestingly enough, after almost four years in my care my once nervous female is slowly coming around and is now starting to do the same thing: going to the door to be let out. She dislikes being handled, but tolerates it for the few seconds it takes to crawl into my arms prior to being placed on the floor.

Like DK,
I too have countless examples of this with some of my varanids: my very large female V. albigularis always scratched at 1 corner of her enclosure to say, "I want out now", and I would open the side door and she would come out, go up the ramp and sit on the inside second story window ledge, and watch the birds on the other side of the glass do their thing = sometimes the birds would take notice of her and perch on the adjoining outside ledge and they would stare at one another = she would spend hours there.

However, my very large 90% yellow male argus (although he had a solid yellow tail tip) learned how to open his top-side door on his own, and would emerge, go down stairs to the living room and hang out on my desk in front of the window, making a terrific mess of everything. He behaved as though he owned the blasted house. He would tripod everytime the postman came onto the porch, or when I entered the kitchen where I never let him go. I had great hilarity with him, and felt these lizards were the most intelligent species I had ever worked/lived with - truly amazing problem solving abilities.

Only my 5 foot savanna would climb on my lap for heat source, and would fall asleep there often, and then go back into her enclosure when it was warmer and go to bed.

They learn your habits, and we learn theirs, and cohabitate amazingly well, considering where and how they oftewn arrive into North America!

cheers,
mbayless

"...and watch the birds on the other side of the glass do their thing = sometimes the birds would take notice of her and perch on the adjoining outside ledge and they would stare at one another = she would spend hours there."

The problem with the birds here is that they've evolved in the presence of monitors, so when one of mine starts basking near a window and the birds take notice, the noise is unbelievable. Usually noisy miners (type of honeyeater), one will give the alarm call, alerting the others until the whole flock is screaming and swooping outside the window. The monitors will often do a reflexive ducking motion, first to one side, then to the other, which I've seen the wild monitors do in the presence of swooping birds as well. Probably to protect their eyes, for when our bell magpies swoop they sometimes hit their target with their bill.

The introduced Indian mynah also causes a fuss on occasion, usually as individuals, though. Since this same species has been introduced to parts of the US, I wouldn't be surprised if people there noticed this behaviour.

Hi DK,

I see that strafing behavior almost daily between the resident red-tail hawks and resident crows/ravens who mob the hawks wherever they fly.

There also several well documented account of this mobbing behavior of bird and goanna (in Oz), bird and Leguaan (in Africa) as well, and they all seem to do the same thing/technique for anti-goanna tactics...and yes, I too believe they go for the eyes, for a blinded goanna is a dead goanna.

cheers,
mbayless