Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey,
To anyone who reads this, believe me I have a decent exotic collection or lizards, consisting of 16 Prehensile tale skinks,
a large Male Rhino Iguana, and a large Male Croc Monitor and and medium size Female Cape monitor. To take you back a few years, I have had REX the large croc since Early '01 and he was a sub adult then. I worked and worked with him and he is the one of the mellowist monitors any species you will ever come across, drinks out of my hand, his almost foot long head is craddled agains my neck without a thought of him biting...He rarely spooks and is totally people accomodated, you get the picture. I have had the Rhino a year longer than that...I used to have a B&W tegu male that passed away last year...The three large Males would roam my backyard every spring through fall.. After the Tegu passed away this year I got a Cape sub adult...As most reptile specialist would say, you can't throw all these monitors in the same backyard??? They have learned to exist, the Rhino is dominant and bullies the croc who is three times his size!! The croc is so tame he just huffs and moves away...But the new Cape has drawn his attention..When he sees her he is all over chasing her as fast as he can, (not too fast) she outruns him, but sometimes he catches her and starts to smell at her neck, I first thought he was going to bite, but I realized he wasn't he trys to pin her down and climb on her...She lets him get about halfway up and then takes off...PLAYING HARD TO GET I GUESS!....
She is still young and very active...I guess my big question is it looks like they will be trying to mate in the future...from what I have seen I think this is obvious...Again, I know crocs aren't known to breed well in captivity, but when you have one totally accoustomed to humans, it is EASY.....SO QUESTION IS IS PHYSICAL and BIOLOGICALLY POSSIBLE that these two species could produce a cross???? I have never dealt with eggs and wouldn't know how to incubate if that was the case..Only have had live born monkey tails, that is the extent of my breeding...Obviously this would be perhaps one of the rareset lizards in the world if I had a clutch of CROC CAPES babies???

I think that is very unlikely. Crocmonitors do not even live in africa,and i have asked many monitorbreeders if a savannahmonitor with a capemonitor can be crossed,but everybody said no,because of different hemipenis structure they told me. But mating seems to have happened on more than one occasion, but never bred. greetings, barry

Well I say yes! In fact I believe you can cross any African monitor in every way, ornatus to nil, nil to albigularis, cape to exantematicus or any combination and location.
Why I think this, simply because monitor reproduction is a matter of synchrony and because most studies are performed by peoples with very little breeding experience, they focus on lung morphology or hempen morphology, has if this has anything to do with conception. NO it doesn’t! Morphology is an adaptation to environment, nothing more!
I challenge any one to prove me wrong, any takers?

Well, show us an example of a big crossbred monitor, so far i have only heard about small monitor crossbreds. Although i have to say that i have seen pictures of albigs which where so very simular to savs... But than again, albigularis comes in so many different pattern,colours,and sizes, all related to location. Maybe it is possible, but i would have to see prove first. greetings, barry

Hi,
You're correct: V. albigularis comes from Africa; V. salvadorii come from New Guinea. They are in different subgenera: Polydaedalus vrs. Papuasaurus. Furthermore, Papausaurus are closer kin to V. komodoensis, V. varius species, both latter in Subgenera 'Varanus' = these two animals (V.a. vrs V.salvd.) come from different lineages and ancestors. Their hemipenes are totally different in morphology, but who knows, maybe they can still 'deliver'? But I doubt it very much that you could get viable young from such a communion.

Some years ago, a fellow told me he bred V. salvator x V. salvadorii = 3 young; 2 of the DOA young he sent to me and they sit on my book shelf = they are V. salvators. He Sincerely believed he got a cross from these, but he had a pregnant V. salvator, nothing more.

cheers,
mbayless

My bull males would breed anything including my leg if I let them, therefore I see no reasons why not a nice female albigularis. Your question about if this can produce viable offspring, only you can answer in a near future.

But your chances are slim, not so much because of the species, but because you don’t know the basic biology, what’s needed to sustain a cycling female and the conditions she needs to nest, before you cover these you may deal with many unfertile clutches. In this case it’s easy to assume the mix to be infertile. I feel this has happened plenty

Go to varanus.net