Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Whats up this is my first post here, might as well show off my flavies.

This male is 29cm svl

this is one of 2 juvies about 16-18cm svl

this shows a little more pattern lighting dosent do him justice though. he is actualy VERY yellow in between the lace almost highlighter yellow ill try to get a pic that shows the color soon

is not a flavi, its a cross. Its a very typical cross. The larger one is very representative of a pure Flavi. When the smaller one grows up, you will notice how it will not look anything like your flavi, its color, pattern and head and tail shape will all be different. Good luck FR

Thats funny because I was there when he picked these up at LLL Reptiles as pure and they comented on that being hard to come by. I was joking with him about the tokay but seriously how can you identify a cross and/or true? If they are crosses he should be able to get his money back right?

Well, being is I am the lad who first crossed them. That was many many years ago, and I have produced many many of them of several kinds of crosses. I may have an advantage. But I could be wrong. But in this case, the small one is very representative of a cross.

The first crosses were accidents. Years later they were not.

I am sure that LLL did not misrepresent them poorly, I am sure they are going by what they were told. The problem is, some folks bred crosses and called them pure. There were two breeders that I know of that did this. One from SoCal and one from central Cal. One simply offers a play on words, as in, he calls them true Sand monitors, which all the gouldi complex are commonly called sand monitors. So any cross between them would be sand monitors as well.

The other was told by the person who bred them and sold them to them, but they refused to change their naming. As when they bought them, they were called pure or true sand monitors.

You must rememeber, most, if not all people in the states did not know much about this group and back 15 years ago, not much was known by anybody, including literature. So monitors were bred to anything that looked similar. As you can tell, most of the gouldi complex appears very similar. There are sutle differences, in color, pattern, size, egg type, head shape, tail scalation and structure, etc. But overall, they appear similar, much like the indicus and doreans types do.

After spending some years in Australia, I realized that some of the books(most) had made mistakes in idendifying animals from this group. As books now do with doreanus and indicus. I can imagine in the future, if these became commonly bred, that this same confusion were be dicussed. The reason, now we do not know type of indicus or doreanus from the other. So if we breed what we call doreanus now, and later it turns out they were of two different species then what do you do? You call them crosses.

Because of the confusion, there is one basic way to approach it, the individual specimen, must appear to represent a pure flavi to be called one. If not, its not. As we have no idea of the genetic origin of these animals, not even the first ones.

Even the Pure gouldi out there are questionable, as I asked Dallas zoo how they knew their goulds were goulds, and their responce was the same, because thats the name they came in as.

If any of you go to Oz and go bush, all the locals will call these monitors, Sand monitors, no matter what kind they actually are. Unless the person your with is very Keen on this group. Cheers FR

This looks just like mine and it is definately pure, what is it excactly that you see that screams out cross

Or are you Mr. Fowler?

the pic is from this site and it still gives him the credit, heres the link
http://www.kingsnake.com/oz/lizards/monitors/vflaviruf.htm

Are you always this pompous or is it cause im a newcomer?

I gave you my opinion, you can do anything you like with it, use it, not use it, its your choice.

If I were you, I would get more opinions. Thats about all there is to it. I am not sure what pompous has to do with it.

I have tons of experience with these particular animals, and I gave you my thoughts. I do feel a little responsible as I was the one who accidently let out crosses without knowing they were crosses.

I also understand, folks do not like information, they did not want. But this information is something you should be exposed to, so now your exposed, I hope you make the right choice. Good luck FR

Since you say you are the one who first bred the cross's, you would know if they are somewhat more calm then a pure argus. Do you see an argusXflavi more calm then an pure argus? Thanks and sorry if its kind of a stupid question but thats just what alot of people say. And I figure ask the one who knows.
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0.1.0 BCI, 3 yr old
0.0.1 Ridge Tail Monitor
0.0.1 ArgusXflavi Cross monitor
0.0.1 Leoperd Gecko, Juvi (My girlfriends)

First, there are calm individuals in the whole group. Argus are the most, hmmmmmmmmmmmm fun, as in, trouble makers. But then, thats what I like about argus.

Consider, the difference is so little, that it really does not make a practical difference.

In the old days most most were wild caught and there was some really really nasty biting crazed out individuals. But these days, argus are just "active". hahahahahahahaha Good luck FR

the way you present it as fact without explination is what annoys me.
the babys are identicle to the subadult scale patern wise, tail-ridge and nostrals were checked for now. I understand this doesnt prove anything, seeing how a hybrid could have kept flavi traits.
I also find it hard to take your word on identification of these seeing how you "acidentily" produced hybrids. If you cant tell adult species apart how can I trust your judgement on juvie hybrids

Get a life, they're your monitors, I only offered you infomation for you to check out. You should not believe anything, not me or LLL, check it out for yourself. I just offered places to look.

For goodness sake, I would never believe you or anyone, but I would listen and if you offered something or led me in a direction that would help me learn, I would investigate it. Gezzzzzzzzzzzzzz

In my personal opinion, anyone who feels compelled to "believe" anything written on these forums or in varanid literature, needs their head examined. Your suppose to become "aware" or "conscious of" not believe. Look those words up. Cheers FR

I emailed you to see if you had any flavies a few weeks ago but you never got back to me. are you still working with them?

I can expect you to know the difference of a cross and a pure considering your background. So I trust your judgement. Maybe you can share what it is that makes the difference so that he can get a pure group of these without guessing at it. I have had three spacific types of Uroplatus in the past and one of those was a natural accuring cross. I could tell the difference of all three by a few differences. They all had pattern variation so the differences where more permanint traits, example... the eyes, scalation and indentations under the arms...maybe the goannas have traits like this?

There are many ozzie books on monitors, they have discriptions in them. Study them. Study the differences. Some are mislabeled. There are also many other monitor books with discriptions, but the ozzie books have better locals. Which is key.

Look at range maps, and plot the pics by locality.

The above will start to give you an idea. Then compare nare openings, ear openings, head shape, the ridge running down the top of the tail. At this time forget about the color and pattern. Study these differences.

Also study V.panoptes. As they are also related and included in the crosses.

After that, we can talk. Thanks FR

Hi all,

In Australia, we generally regard Flavi's as a subspecies of V. gouldii.

The Australian gouldii complex is split and keyed out this way:

You have Varanus gouldii, V. panoptes and V. rosenbergi

1 a)solid yellow tail tip (last 70 mm of an adult speciemen is solid yellow you have V. gouldii

B) tail banded to the end ....go to 2

2 a) found in Southern Australia (Victoria, NSW, SA, Southern WA (perth region) predominately greyish adult colouration...V. rosenbergi
B) Found in Northern Australia (QLD, NT, Northern WA (Mainly))not greyish as adults.

Within V. gouldii you have V. gouldii Flavirufus..its not well defined...but is generally yellow or reddish and restricted to Central Australia, the rest of the range is occupied by the nominate form.

Within V. panoptes you have V. p. rubidus it differs from the nominate by being redder in colouration, and having no dark bands on the tail tip

Reference:
Wilson, S. and Swan, G. 2003. A complete guide to the Reptiles of Australia. Newholland.

Regards,
Scott Eipper

np

Heres mine, he has alot of argus Im guessing, lol. He has physical features of both, color and pattern from both.