Reptile & Amphibian Forums

The top one is a three way cross, V.gouldi/V.flavirufus/V.panoptes, Whats odd is, its parents are threeways also, and its exactly like them.

The botton one is a Twoway, V.panoptes/V.flavirufus, I put it in the pic for comparison.

This is a pic of the threeways parents when they were teenagers, you can see they are banded like the hatchling. The pattern breaks up as they grow(normal with monitors)

Also, these started hatching when I was gone.

The parents to these were also mating when I got back. This is the second year in a row, that they hatched and bred at the same time. Hmmmmmmmm I wonder if there is anything to that.

I had two females lay eggs as well, but did not dig them up, maybe today. I doubt if they would still be good. Enjoy the pics, FR

((Hmmmmmmmm I wonder if there is anything to that))

Interesting! You may have part of the answer to this if you noticed any off feeding pattern during this period. Only speculating here but this would help population bloom.

Nice photos, love those Crosse!
Rgds

Spectacular hatchlings! So colorful. How big do the three way's get? I know that the two way crosses tend to be smaller.

Always love your pictures. Makes my day.

Leslie

Please bear with me on this, i am wondering the differences on gouldii and flavi's, gouldii is a subspecies of flavii, right?
What are the differences?

Also, hornii and rosenbergs are also supspecies of flavi, correct?

And panoptes are argus? Which are also subspecies of flavi...?

Maybe it is just late but when I was trying to figure it all out the taxonomy seemed very confusing....

Nonetheless, Those three-ways are gorgeous...
Frank, what size will they grow to. (the three-ways)

thanks
josh

They are all different species period. Thats why they are called crosses and not intergrades.

The gouldi complex is similar to the indicus complex, both are full of monitors very similar to eachother. Yet, they are different.

Keep in mind, I am glad I had nothing to do with naming them as its a very tough group. I think the key is, several of these species overlap without intergrading. That means they are seperate and distint.

There are many many differences between them(gouldi complex) from structure, eyes, noses, ears, ridges on the tail, head shape, etc. The real problem is, there are more types undescribed then discribed, so looking at books is often very tough as they have mislabeled or misidentified monitors in the pics.

I read everything I could, but could not make hide nor hair of it, until I looked at the actual animals in nature. It took many years of looking to finally figure them out. That is, to understand, there is more unknown about them then is known.

They all are medium sized monitors. The gouldi and gouldi crosses have the smallest babies and are a tiny bit smaller as adults.

It is somewhat silly to compare sizes as they overlap. Its also silly to use maximum size, as that does not reflect the normal. They all can be productive at 2 feet(females), with huge males of, V.panoptes, reaching 6 feet. Good luck FR

Thanks for the reply, that makes some sense of it, hopefully some day I can go and study them in nature and make better sense of it...

josh