Reptile & Amphibian Forums

not the best picture but any help would be appreciated. The sides have a pink/orange hue to them. Any ideas?

looks like v.melinus to me

i have 3 V. melinus and although the back has a sort of melinus look, the side color, head color and head shape definitely rule melinus out. Thanks for the opinion though.

To me it's look like a bewani blue tail

My guess would be a cyclops mountains Varanus doreanus. The entire subgenera Euprepiosaurus needs much revision, as more and more variants of the currently recognized species are being discovered, as more and more of the many islands surrounding New Guinea/West Papua are explored for varanid existence.. There are many different types of "blue tailed monitors", many types of "mangrove monitors"... same goes for "tree monitors". The entire subgenera is an entire mess, and if somebody where to actually sit down and sort things out, many of these new 'variants' could possbily be separate species... but until then, all of these animals are all slumped together into unorganized groups...

but it definately looks V. doreanus- like... I've seen that picture before, on a japanese dealer's site. I can't recall if they listed the locality of that particular animal or not... There are a few animals that resemble that, which were imported into the US as juveniles. As they mature, the orange background really starts to come out... Very beautiful animals they are...

Cheers,

Bob
TREEMONITORS.COM

oops, didn't mean that particular picture, but that 'variant' I saw on a japanese dealer's site... sorry for the misunderstanding..

Definetly doreanous!,,, as for locality,,, Steve B.(Jobi) has one that looks exactly(or close) to yours. He also gets in rare salvadorri monitor localities witch I believe overlap some soreanous terriotory, but am not sure. But I do know he has/or gets some great looking salvadorri in such as Jayapuras(Fast Growing BEauties!). Good luck finding the locale,,,
cheers,,,,, omar

That looks alot like the V. finschi that used to come in back in the early 90s, but its quite young looking so the patterns and coloration could change quite a bit. You could try and find out what the tongue coloration is, that sometimes helps.

Also is steve b. and importer or a collector over here in the states, dont get around to these forums much.
Thanks
Scott

Bob, thanks for the info, really appreciate it. It must have been a different japanese picture because i took this picture myself as this girl is in my collection. I have had it since a baby and i traded for it. The guy told me he wanted to trade me a blue tail which i was not real interested because i had too many bluetails but he was real insistant so i thought i would humor him and take a look at it. Lets just say I was very glad i took the time to look. She is very friendly and as you said, the color is really coming out more and more each day. Thanks again for the input.

It is a locality specific color variant of V. Doreanus (bluetail monitor). It may grow up to become orange pastel looking, or even a ghostly blue.

wow, thanks for all the input. It gives me some info to start researching. I normally know exactly where my monitors come from but as i took this one in on a trade, i am at a loss. I also have personally seen and held the yellow prasinus (not the ones posted on the classifieds) and i have to tell you, not only are they great looking but it makes me wonder how many yet undiscovered monitors are out there.

np