I acquired Mushu, the female, in 1999 (I may have errantly said I have had her 7 years, but it is 6; I apologize for the error). She was like that when I got her. In fact, she was much worse.
Mushu was in pretty bad shape when I received her. She was missing a large portion of her tail. Most of the skin on her back was gone and covered in a slimy mucus. Her mouth was mutilated and she drooled a bloody, slimy ooze (like a komodo dragon). She also occasionally gasped for air and had either a scab or scar tissue sealing off one nostril (which I removed and this appeared to improve her breathing quite a bit). The history I was given for her detailed a pretty bad life. She had most recently been kept in a wire rabbit cage with no water in a garage. She was fed lunch meat and very little else. Sadly, she had been rescued by these people from people who keeping her just as poorly. Apparently the desire to rescue her did not last long for these new people. A friend of mine saw her being kept in the garage and convinced the people to give her to me. She actually seemed to recover fairly quickly. It is amazing how decent temps and good food can turn around a sick monitor. Another thing I noticed with her eating was that she had no teeth. Food would fall out of her mouth and she had a hell of a time eating for a long time. She developed quite system for eating food. She'd push it against a wall and use the wall to brace the food.
So, all the damage you see on her was done prior to her coming to me.
As it is now, she is the one dishing out the damage. She holds her own against males now.
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^x^ Bloodbat ^x^
Monitors, monitors everywhere
and all the food they ate.
Monitors, monitors everywhere,
their parents loved to mate.
