Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am not a big time herp breeder nor am I a scientist, but I am someone that works in technology. The reason I started keeping herps is I wanted to learn about them, not breed them (though that is part of learning about them) This leads me to wonder the following about wild monitor studies:

1) Has technology reached a point where a small lipstick type camera and light can be threaded into monitor burrows to see how many are in there? or how many use the same burrow?

2) Is there a way to tag monitors in a way similar to the way snakes are? If some in the same area are monitored we could see if they ever "hang out" together, or at least find out where they go and how long they stay in burrows.

3) Has anyone ever set a motion sensor camera up near a place where monitors are known to stay? If so have multiple monitors been seen in close proximity on a regular basis, or been known to be in a burrow at the same time?

4) Has anyone ever dug up a burrow and found numerous monitors together?

5) Is there anywhere I can learn about monitors and the way they are studied in the wild other than the few snippets I see on TV and the few websites about captive monitors. I do enjoy the TV and websites.

6) Is there anything I or anyone else in the US can do to help the study of monitors. I know I can send money to researchers and such, but the demise of the tech industry in the last few years has limited my financial resources.

I am not here to try and argue with anyone or say someone is not correct in what they say/think. I am on this forum to learn all I can about these very fascinating creatures.

Ed
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Ed

There are chameleons, pythons, and monitors in my jungle room.

Hi Ed,

Many studies have already been done on monitors, but there's always a lot more to learn. Your questions are good ones.

Is there a way to tag monitors in a way similar to the way snakes are? If some in the same area are monitored we could see if they ever "hang out" together, or at least find out where they go and how long they stay in burrows.

Some of the studies have used tags, transmitters or thread to follow their movements. Sam Sweet would have a much broader knowledge of who has studied what, but the studies I have read papers on (mostly on lace monitors) have shown that they live and sleep alone.

Many people disagree with the use of transmitters, but if they were to change an animal's behaviour I'd be surprised if they continued to happily reproduce but suddenly stopped being 'social' because of the transmitter. If they stopped breeding altogether, or bolted and abandoned the area they were caught in, we'd have an issue with the transmitters, but usually they carry on in much the same way as animals without transmitters (many studies combine animals with transmitters with observational studies on animals without transmitters).

Forget about TV documentaries, as they are usually staged to make a nice story (entertaining and interesting to watch, though). Go to the journals section of the local university library and get someone to show you how to look through the abstracts for articles of interest, then dig them out and read them. The good thing about papers is that there is a materials and methods section, explaining how the research was done. If you don't agree with how they got their results, take the results with a grain of salt. If you think the study was done well, the results may be of interest.

There's nothing that says it has to benefit your captives, sometimes it's just interesting to read.

Hi Ed,

I can respond to some of your queries, both from the technical and practical sides – I've had a fair bit of both good and bad experience trying to get answers of these kinds from wild monitors. Bit of a long post, sorry.

Cameras – There are both fiberoptic endoscopes and lipstick cameras that will do much of what you'd like. They are a bit finicky, and not cheap, and require toting a car battery around if you're going to do anything serious with them. I have used both here in Calif. to keep track of tiger salamanders in small mammal burrows, but have not used either with monitors. They would certainly work for ground burrows some of the time, but if there is any serious curvature in the burrow (S-bends are the worst) you're pretty much stumped unless you have a steerable-head endoscope (around $20 k last I checked). They would generally not be usable in complex rock crevice systems, nor in trees, where the monitors tend to be in fragile hollow limbs well off the ground and out from the trunk. For hollow tree trunks I often use a small mirror to reflect sunlight in – I can tell you that this really freaks monitors out, and suspect you wouldn't see a lot of behavior by shining lights on them in the dark.

Tagging – Radiotelemetry is the way to go here. There are good, reliable transmitters that weigh 0.3-0.5 g (about the size of a wooden matchhead), but they require a linear antenna to have any range at all, and are really constrained by battery technology. Small batteries are mostly casing; you only start to get reasonable durations (months rather than days) with batteries that weigh 2-3 g. The transmitters I've used most recently weighed a bit over 4 g when encapsulated, and lasted 9-10 months. They are less than half the volume of a single egg of a small monitor like V. scalaris, or, about the size of one of their turds, so not huge. The best method is to surgically implant the transmitter in one side of the body cavity just ahead of the hind limb, and to run the very thin antenna wire up the lateral fold under the skin, to a point just ahead of the shoulder. I haven't seen any "radio effects" from comparing behaviors of tagged and untagged animals [although the torches and pitchforks crowd loves to jump on this point, it has been looked at a lot, and is certainly the least-worst alternative]. Externally attached, backpack-style radios just don't work for small monitors, as they get hung up on everything.

Radiotelemetry gets something of a bad name from wildlife biologists, who often hang the equivalent of bricks around animals' necks and crash around with cheap receivers – it's not like that with other biologists. You can (and I do) minimize weight and maximize transmitter lifetime by using very weak signals coupled with a very sensitive receiving antenna. With a bit of practice, you can tell if an unseen animal is oriented vertically or horizontally or is moving around, at a distance of 2-300 yards; similarly, you can identify which of several nearby limbs an animal is in, or where inside a tree, log or burrow an animal is, with an accuracy of about 6". Because each radio has a unique frequency it is never a problem to identify individual animals.

The biggest problem is in fact catching the animals. For the work I have done it has been important to tag and follow all of the adult animals in a given area (say, 100 acres), and you get pretty clever at catching them, though some holdouts can be a real challenge to get. Once you have a few animals that you can find anytime you choose you learn a lot of small things about what they're doing where and when that helps you find the others – in fact, I usually let the radiotagged animals show me where others are. If you spend a lot of time watching these small monitors you find that they spend some of their time watching their neighbors, even when those others are 50 yards or more away in the woods. Occasionally you can see them yourself even that far off, but more usually you narrow it down to 3-4 trees, and take it from there. It's not quick, but if you're there all day every day watching the animals you get a pretty good idea of where the rest of them are. In a recent study I had 15 V. tristis tagged in a 100 acre patch of woods, and knew of 3 subadult females that were too small for radios, plus a few juveniles. There was one more adult female that I saw but never caught, and I think one more adult male that sometimes came onto part of the study plot (based on where other big males didn't go), but I never actually saw him, if he existed.

Now, when you go find and see all 15 animals every day (and often 2-3x/day) for months, and get to follow them around for hours as they go about their business, I think you don't miss a lot of interactions. You come to know who lives where, and while you're watching one you keep flipping through channels to keep track of where that animal's neighbors are right then. Except in mating season, no two adult animals were ever in the same tree, and rarely were any two within 30 yards of each other. Other than the ones mentioned above, I never saw any other adult tristis there – once I got up to 15, every animal I saw was one I knew. In mating season, the males found all the females I knew about, and no others, and all the females I watched courting and mating were interacting with one of the males I knew.

In the same area I got up to 44 V. scalaris, then quit, both because I was out of radios and because it is impossible to work more than 60 animals/day. I had all adult individuals in the center third of the study area, but knew of at least that many elsewhere. This worked out, because scalaris have very small home ranges (about 1 acre), compared to 15-20 acres for tristis of the same body size in the same woodland. Ecological differences, you bet.

You could never get this quantity of information from simply going out and looking for animals. The woods are big and the lizards are small and like to hide. Radios let you find them quickly every time you look, no matter where they are, hidden, active, nesting, whatever. It's from work like this (and an earlier study on V. glauerti and V. glebopalma, both a year long) that I have to say sorry, but these things are just not "social" in any way, shape or form out bush. On the contrary, they actively avoid each other. You'll perhaps excuse my responses when people with no comparable experience talk about 'bonded pairs', 'resource sharing', 'hubs' and other stuff that no one who actually does the hard fieldwork has ever seen.

Remote cameras – Daniel Bennett has done some of this with V. olivaceus and fruiting trees, and finds that several animals may feed in the same tree. Otherwise, there are plenty of sandy places where you can track monitors, and Alexiy Tsellarius has done a heap of this with V. griseus, as has Eric Pianka with various Australian desert monitors. Short version, they travel alone, and at least with griseus get all bent up if they encounter the track of another monitor.

Burrows – I can't be exhaustive here, but Eric Pianka may have dug up more monitor burrows than anyone this side of a hungry Aboriginal, and he has never found more than one in a burrow. In different parts of northern Australia female V. panoptes and V. spenceri are known to congregate at certain sites to nest. The Abs really get after the panoptes at these traditional nesting sites, but each of the hunters I've talked to has said 'one hole one goanna', and this seems also to be true for V. spenceri. Just why panoptes does this is not clear (I can offer the suggestions that have been made, on request), whereas for spenceri it's clear that they seek out slightly elevated spots, which are very few in very-very flat country.

Bah, too long to write or to read! I can offer suggestions on your inquiries 5 and 6 later......

You should consider that in order for science to impliment its studies, it must use people who buy in to those type studies. Again please, its not about right or wrong, It simply is.

Many field studies, envolve intrusion. That is, the researcher, must manipulate the animals being studied. The researcher must by into the fact that the animals are not effected by this manipulation. Or they would not partake in the study.

For instance, a biologist that implants radios(common type of study), believes that will not effect the animals. To implant radios, you must capture the animal, remove it from its environment, put the animal under general anaesthesia, implant the radio, with the antenna sticking out, return it to where you found it, and then believe it will behavior as it did before all this occured. One more thing, you must believe that individual will not be affected by the researcher and his students, who are running around with TV antennas sticking out of their heads. hahahahahahahahaha. Yes, that is a little over dramatic, but its absolutely true.

Its not because its a radio, put any foregin body in a monitor and it "has" to react to it. Having a antenna sticking out of a monitor, has to effect it. Sure it will stop trying to rub it off after a period of time, but that does not mean it does not effect it.

On the other side of the fence, Good keepers are good because they are sensitive to the animals. The above radio installation, does not appear to be very sensitive to the animals.

Again this is not about right or wrong, its merely to point out, two completely different types of people are envolved.

The researchers believe the animals, get used to it. But as a keeper, I cannot see how thats possible. That much impact is never gotten used to. In fact, even after many many generations in captivity, they would not be used to that.

If would ask DK if he would stick a radio in his captive Lacie and see how she reacts, that would be a great experiment. Will she still multiclutch. How would the implantation effect her, behaviorally? What are the longterm effects of this, etc. Guess what, that has not been done, ever?

If a study had a group of captives and a group of wild monitors, and behavior was watched without intrusion, then compared to behavior with intrusion, that sir, would be of great interest to me. That has not been done.

Reseachers are normally not people who have a history of proven captive experience. That is, its more or less a one sided view. I applaud Sam for keeping Croc montiors before he does a study. I hope he will keep the captive Croc monitors for several generations before doing the field study.

I know from my own experience, that I did not learn whats important and meaningful about species, until after my third or fourth generation with that species. But then I may be slow, but I do have good reason to make that statement(not slow dudes)

I do field studies with two types of rattlesnakes. I have been "on" many field studies. Ours uses pit tags to identify the individuals. With pit tags, you still must capture the individual. Most studies removed the individuals captured.

The studies I have been on, that removed the animals and tagged them, then brought them back, had a very very low recapture rate. Our study, we process the animals, right were we find them. We have a far higher recapture rate. Like a lot higher.

But even with that in mind. Almost two thirds, are disturbed. That is, they leave their exsisting range. The reason we can see this is, the 1/3 that are recaptured, are recaptured over many years in the same area. They did not leave. And we are careful to do as little intrusion as possible. Remember, we have been on this study for 14 years, we would have never seen it in the first two years.

Common sense would predict, that the larger the species, the better radios would work, but surely they are not appreiate with small reptiles. Kinda like putting a 15 gallon lard drum in an adult saltwater crocodile and expecting it to be normal.

So while there are indeed things to be gathered, so far, they were not the things I wanted to be gathered, thus my opinion, these studies were of no benefit to my captive work. I hope this helps.

There are lots of tech devices that would help and do good work, but there are two problems. One is lack of money and the other is, lack of comparable data. Science, is keen that new data must compare to old data. Of course, the old dog and new trick thing is evident here too. FR

Hi Frank,
I have been away for a while - wow, you guys really must not have much work to do, lol. I don't necessarily agree with all that you are saying. You know I have captive and research experience. When radios are implanted these days, they are much smaller than in the old days, the radio does not come out of the body, and we try not to disturb the animals when tracking. We don't need to replace batteries in radios for up to 2 years. At first, the animals are a little weird, but after a week or so they seem to act just fine (I have done this in horned lizards, rosy boas, red diamond rattlers, and many types of Cyclura). Breeding and thermoregulation were tested in all the above and were the same in comparison to animals that were never captured, so were home ranges. Also, to test whether radios have an effect on breeding, we have radios in many of our captive Cyclura. I have a Cuban iguana who triple-clutches with a radio in her - that has never been documented in wild or captive animals that I know of (for this type of lizard). Just another side of the coin for those who are interested. Oh, also, I have some beautiful shots of a radiographed rosy and ruber with a radio and little babies next to the radio. They all survived with no problems and some were evn recaptured later in life. My 2 cents worth - enjoy,
Jeff

I course we don't agree on everything, I know of no two people who do. hahahahahahahahaha
Thanks for the report on better radios, I am aware of them, and yes, they will lessen the impact.

But they do not eliminate, the surgery or removing the victims, I mean monitors from nature. Or does it eliminate people following them.

I am sure you are very sensitive to the behaviors of monitors. but I wonder how many are as sensitive as you.

We too have seen success and reproduction of a percentage of the snakes on our site. In fact, a long history of success with some.

But it still does not address what happened to a high percentage that failed from our intrusion. Of course it can be said, they would have failed anyway. I do consider that, but do not use that. We still interfered and they reacted.

Its my opinion, that some wild wild wild monitors, are very sensitive to mans presence. As in, would completely alter their normal behaviors. Others around parks or towns or roads, may be better subjects, as they are used to man.

For instance, I can call in roadrunners. City roadrunners will approach within inches of me. But, wild ones will not get close at all. They will approach, but not within 50 meters or so. I think wild monitors are a bit like this.

Which has brought up the question, other then KD's, people avoid studying park type populations. Is there some reason for this, I mean, they are just like other populations except, they are more tolerant of mans presence. Thanks FR

As you see, some will defend results and others will not. The choice is for you the reader to decide for yourself. You should be made aware of how the studies were taken, what the methods were. Then with that in mind, decide for yourself, how useful the information is. For instance, I have no problem with radio studies, I just thing, that should be included in the title. So I know how to interpid the articule.

To understand the difference, Radios gather information much faster then pit tags. Pit tags offer and easy method to identify individuals. I know, from my own work, that understanding them is over long periods of time, not lots of data in a short period. I ask, why does it have to be so fast, why can't it be slow and accurate?

I am a Jane Goodall or Diane Fossy, type . I think the results I am looking for are found over long periods of watching animals with little intrusion. They too saw things all other biologist and acadamia did not.

Thanks FR

As you see, some will defend results and others will not. The choice is for you the reader to decide for yourself. You should be made aware of how the studies were taken, what the methods were. Then with that in mind, decide for yourself, how useful the information is. For instance, I have no problem with radio studies, I just thing, that should be included in the title. So I know how to interpid the articule.

You've made a good point about reading the materials and methods section of a paper before deciding whether or not you should take the results seriously. I mentioned pretty much the same thing in my post to Ed:

"The good thing about papers is that there is a materials and methods section, explaining how the research was done. If you don't agree with how they got their results, take the results with a grain of salt. If you think the study was done well, the results may be of interest."

I have a copy of a PhD thesis in my posession, done on lace monitor reproduction in the wild. The study was over a four year period with pretty intensive field work. As the researcher was living not too far from the study site, he was able to travel there frequently and spend long times in the field at any time of the year, resulting in hundreds of field hours of observations and data. I've read the materials and methods section and have found nothing that would warrant strange behaviours (he used transmitters, but also observed untouched, untagged animals, all of which behaved in similar ways). Among his results were the observations that they are pretty much solitary animals, but do gather in the breeding season to mate. There was one fairly tight nesting period, no multiclutching observed.

Now, given that you are a Jane Goodall or Diane Fossey type (I can't remember how many years Diane Fossey spent in the field, but for Jane it was much of her young life - many years) and that your studies take years of direct observation, perhaps you should share your 'materials and methods' so we can have a valid comparison and decide how we should view your results with lace monitors.

How many years have you spent living in Australia, observing this species, to discover that they pair bond, multiclutch etc, and what techniques did you use to discover these things? Which part of Australia were you living in at the time, how many animals were there in your study, all that sort of information. This is not an attack, believe me. If any scientist had done research on monitors (regardless of whether or not the results agreed with what was known about the species studied), I'd want to read their materials and methods section, too, as I mentioned above.

But just to set the record strait, you need to prove, how you know any of this does not exsist, and do so in photographs. Just like you ask KL and I to do. To say you did not see it, does indeed prove nothing, either way. Thank You, FR

"But just to set the record strait, you need to prove, how you know any of this does not exsist, and do so in photographs."

Ah, but I have. I have posted many many photographs of solitary monitors, as have you. In fact, every photograph of wild monitors I have ever seen has supported this same view. Surely if they pair bonded and stayed together, acting cosy with each other as they do in captivity, there'd be photographs of pairs everywhere. At least 20% of the photographs (to represent the 20% that pair bond in the wild, according to your observations).

Unfortunately, however, there is no onus on someone supporting the accepted view of monitor behaviour to prove their stance, as it's already there in the literature, everywhere one looks. It's up to someone that's trying to change the common perception to prove their position. I don't need to take photographs of polar bears to prove they are arctic animals, but if I were to claim they were Saharan it would be expected of me to provide photographs of them in the desert.

So, back to the topic at hand. I've got that thesis at home with its thorough materials and methods section so I know how much time that researcher spent in the bush to get his results on lace monitors. You were about to tell me how many years you spent observing lace monitors in Australia to come to your conclusions, as well as where your study site was and how many animals you observed...

I spoke to Peter yesterday, as he just returned this week. He mentioned meeting you at the conference and described you as being 'just like an Oz herper, but with an American accent.'

Don't worry, I think he meant it as a compliment! LOL.

Well, then, good on him mate (in my best American accent - you'll notice tha lack of "crikey" in my statement). Hopefully my rep isn't ruined now, damn, lol.

I want to thank the people that posted answers to the questions that I posted here. I did not mean to start another thread of arguments (though they can show numerous sides of an issue.) I found it very interesting to read about the processes used in field studies. Not to get another discussion started, but it seems like good information comes from the scientist and also the top breeders. Some of the information is different, some of it is the same. I do believe that we all have an affinity for varanids and this one thing we all have in common, no matter how we go about our work/hobby with them.
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Ed

There are chameleons, pythons, and monitors in my jungle room.

Nice post, Ed.