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What is the most intelligent Monitor Lizard? Roughly, how do they rank with each other? Are Tegus more smart/less smart/the same? Thanks for your time

>>What is the most intelligent Monitor Lizard? Roughly, how do they
>>rank with each other? Are Tegus more smart/less smart/the same?
>>Thanks for your time

Unfortunately, there is no good way to measure what we refer to as intelligence. As a result, there is no good answer to your question. It really comes down to experience with the animals in question, which in turn leads to bias and subjective impressions.

For example, I've heard a lot of people say argus monitors were really, really smart for a monitor lizard. Well, I've had argus monitors for over a decade now and I've seen them do some pretty dumb things. I've also seen other monitors do smart things that my arguses have never done. For example, I had a salvator monitor that could figure out how to go around a barrier to get food. Arguses are too focused to go through the reasoning to do this - they just keep trying to go through the barrier. I think there is a perception that alert, focused creatures are smart, which is why arguses get their reputation.

I once read a statement that monitors were smarter than parrots. I just had to laugh. Having lived with both parrots and monitors, to me there is no comparison. Parrots can do things intelectually that monitors will never be able to do.

Luke

ive never really thought of tegus being intelligent, i always found them more personable, but not smarter. as monitors go, i think, the gouldi complex are all real intelligent and croc monitors as well, some say they are the smartest if not one of the top three. Albigs are pretty smart, but only when it comes to getting attention for food, or escaping. these are my opinions.
scott

I think that Monitor lizards are significantly smarter than tegus. There is a lot of evidence which supports this as well, through behavioral observations, phylogenetic analysis, etc..

One interesting study that I am aware of, which I believe involved testing albigularis, if I'm not mistaken, was that researchers were able to determine that V. albigularis can count to 5. To the best of my knowledge(read it a while ago), it involved a room, with a door, in which 5 mice/rats were placed in the room, and the monitor could not exit the room until all 5 rodents were eaten(can't remember of there were more rodents to eat in the next room or not). Once the monitor ate the 5 mice, a door opened, and was able to move on to the next room.

After several trials of doing the 5 mice, the researchers began experimenting with other numbers. When only four mice were placed in the setup, the monitor would eat the 4, and the door would open, however, the monitor would frantically search for the fifth mouse. The same went for 3 mice. Although the door was open, the monitor would not exit the room until it had found 5 mice/rats.

I found it very interesting to read about, and I need to find another copy of that publication, to make sure that what I just said was accurate..hahah.. (well it's along these lines at least...)

There's a lot of interesting studies, publications, surveys, etc.. out there for anyone to read, you just have to put some effort and time into pursuing your interest. Sadly, most monitor keepers and enthusiasts leave their search for knowledge in crappy books or the forums... There's a lot more out there to learn, and if you were a die hard monitor enthusiast, I would think you'd want to learn as much as possible... So my advice to everyone, get out there and look around... There's a lot of really cool stuff to be learned...

There's more to monitors, than 55gallon aquariums and dome lamps....

Cheers everybody,

Bob
TREEMONITORS.COM

It was snails, and not rodents... but you get the point....

Here's an abstract of the study:

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1134/is_2_113/ai_113896659

Thank you very much for that tid bit of information. Sounds like an interesting study. I just wanted to get a little feedback from other monitor keepers. It was just funny to me because my 3 1/2 foot Savannah makes my Bearded Dragons look so stupid. I am also sorry for being so stupid as to use the Monitor Lizard forum, where some of the most experienced, or dare I say, "hard-core" keepers come and exchange information about these animals.

Well Heck, just about object is smarter than a bearded dragon...I think my pet rock can outsmart one....hahahah.

Personally, in my experience, I would rank the african monitors(except for griseus- have never kept or interracted with griseus-don't know how 'smart' they are) on the lower end of the intelligence spectrum of varanids, and would place V. varius, V. komodoensis, and V. salvadorii up at the top of the list.

My bearded dragon's favorite past times include basking, falling off branches he's trying to climb (this includes when you walk in the room and startle them and they just sort of lose their balance...always sort of funny). Oh, I almost forgot, the beardie trademark, fighting with his reflection in the glass. I also have a mali uromastyx, and she has never done that. I don't think even my leopard gecko has done that.

He also is a very stubborn feeder. It used to be all he liked was crickets, but that wasn't good for him obviously, and he even started to develop the early stages of kidney failure (I caught it and gave him fluid therapy, he recovered fine). Now all he'll eat are repcal pellets, and only the RED ONES!!! Even when he eats the others by accident he just doesn't understand that they all taste exactly the same! I will say that he is sort of smart in the respect that he knows how to get what he wants. I took away his repcal pellets for the past few days to try to get him to eat his greens, and he has gotten so fed up with it by today (the fourth or fifth day) that he purposely threw his greens around the cage.

The bearded dragon....the idiot savants of the reptile world?

The thing I love about my Savannah, he always craps in the corner of his room, so I just lay out some newspaper there and clean -up is very easy. The damn dragons crap wherever they fell like it! They have a ver arbitrary method of defecating.

Where they were proven to be able to count up to 6 using snails, but anything beyond 6 was just a "lot" to them. Page 43 in King and Greens monitor lizard biology book. As quoted, that shows they can count better than most small children, also some adults, lol.

np