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Here is a full size photo of the sexual differences in adult Jobiensis.
Male on top, female on bottom.

Keep in mind youngsters all look female to me.
Then one day you'll notice this (new?) Monitor in your enclosure.
When a male matures there's no mistaking!
High double serated dorsal ridge on the tail along with hemipenal bulge is a dead give away.

Mike

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Mike's Monitors!

Hey Mike,

Thanks for the picture. Do the male jobiensis not have to "popeye" fore arms and thick necks that are common with the aus species? Also I read your article in Biawak today, I was surprised to see the female laying so shallow. Was that a trick of the camera due to placement or were the eggs actually placed that close to the surface? One last question for now, how did you heat the substrate for their cage? I saw the trough was elevated off the ground, but didn't see any heat tape on the trough or lights close to the substrate.

Thanks so much for taking the time to share with me.

Mike W.

"Hey Mike,

Thanks for the picture. Do the male jobiensis not have to "popeye" fore arms and thick necks that are common with the aus species? Also I read your article in Biawak today, I was surprised to see the female laying so shallow. Was that a trick of the camera due to placement or were the eggs actually placed that close to the surface? One last question for now, how did you heat the substrate for their cage? I saw the trough was elevated off the ground, but didn't see any heat tape on the trough or lights close to the substrate.

Thanks so much for taking the time to share with me.

Mike W."

Mike
Of 5 clutches 3 were nested in that same spot, 2 in a external nest box (a boxed in 10 gallon tank with heat tape).
For heating the trough itself I use a regular space heater.

In this photo you can see my light box that would heat the substrate near the 3 nest sites (lower right side).
As a bonus this box also acted as a basking shelf, they loved the belly heat.
All 5 clutches were nested shallow.
I have my theroies on why they may be shallow nesters.

I will post a great photo of the adults for you to compare, but yes males have bigger, thicker forearms and necks...plus head shape too.
Good Luck Brother.
Mike

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Mike's Monitors!

Hey Mike,

Thanks again for the info. That lower basking area right above the substrate is my next change I'm going to make to my bigger peachthroat cage. With the stop in temps with winter coming on I have not compensated enough with substrate heating, so they aren't burrowing as much. So with the lights right above the substrate did you still need the space heater as well? Also in the picture of your monitors, is the male on top? Big hemipenal bulges on that one.

Thanks again
Mike W

Hi Mike, let me take a long at this.

I do congratulate you on your success with this species, and you did a heck of a job.

But did you not lose your female? Is so, what caused it?

My point is, five nestings is not enough to actually understand what is going on. Also how many females?

You see, you may want to make theories over, one situation what was marginally successful.

In my opinion, your female nested shallow because thats the only place she found suitable. And because, she only laid five clutches, it may have have only been good enough to support those five clutches.

Just to make it a bit real, I produced well over a hundred lacies, from four females, some laying five clutches a year, AND I STILL DID NOT HAVE NESTING RIGHT. As I lost each and every female to early reproductive failure. Some well over that five clutch thing.

Do you measure success with 15 hatchlings, or a dead female. Again, I congratulate you on your success, but I would hesitate to call them shallow nesters.

ALso, nesting is very conditional and genetic. Of the over twenty something species of all manner. All nested deep. And yes, I had a few nest shallow(and hatch) But shallow nesting was not normal. It only occurred when I did not have the conditions to support good nesting.

Lastly our record for one female was over 80 clutches. In that case, I think I got it right. Of course, that is very very much an extreme. But I would think the larger monitors should produce easily over 25 clutches in a lifetime.

So if your supported a female to achieve something around or close to normal, Then I would call that good nesting, or normal nesting.

Again, I congratulate you on your success. Thanks and best wishes

wow you are the king of reptiles

Thats funny, may I ask, how does that reply that make anyone the king of reptiles.

First off, reptiles do not have a human king. And I surely don't know which reptile would be the current king of reptiles, Maybe a saltwater croc.

So this leads me to ask, King of reptiles, what makes you say such a thing? Are you trying to be funny or are you trying to start trouble. If your trying to start trouble, then please report yourself to Cindy. Thanks

Lolong the current king of reptiles captured in Mindanao, southern Filipines.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDJ_-yLLfX8&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Hi Frank
You know all of the answers to these questions your asking, you did so in "08".

"Do you measure success with 15 hatchlings"

Personally YES! For Jobiensis YES!
Seeing how nobody else has had ANY success with this species!

Thanks for your input, Frank.
Stuff to think about.
Have a nice day!

Mike

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Mike's Monitors!

Hi Mike, I am sorry you take this poorly. i did give you all the credit in the world.

I do really hate that cut and paste approach you just took.

You forgot to cut and paste, the female died from reproductive complications to the 15 hatchling part. Which does change the meaning some.

Mind you, you did great. But the question was about shallow nesting. As you should know, nesting is a major cause of reproductive failures with VARANIDS.

That your female died from reproductive failure, brings into question the quality of nesting. Is it the shallow nesting? got me, I don't know, but it fits the pattern of failure with many varanids.

What is so very sad is, Why many people cannot talk about problems as well as successes. The reality is, with monitors, there are more problems then successes. You were successful at getting a few to hatch. That I congratulated you on(over and over). But the question is surrounding the area that may have caused your project to fail. The NESTING. which by the way is common with varanids.

So instead of being helpful, you choose to be sensitive about yourself. Which is nasty bad. As that kind of thing is what keeps allowing monitors to DIE(of reproductive failure).

In order to judge your methods, one needs to consider the entire outcome, not just the good part.

You had one single female lay five clutches and then she perished, is that so?

What gets me is, WE ALL FAIL in this area, but why do we hide it. The truth is, the problem is the areas we fail in, not the areas we succeed in. If we were in person, I would slap you and say, hey dude, I love you hatched that many, but why did the female die?????? You see, that is the problem. Why did she die? Was she old? fill us in Mike.

I am surely dumb as a stone, but I think how you fix something is fix the broken part, not fix the part that works. Yes?

Frank
What you like and don't like is no concern of mine.

AS YOU KNOW, my female died as a result of an error on my part.
Plus a secondary infection she could not beat.

Would she have died from reproduction failure, who knows?

"I am surely dumb as a stone, but I think how you fix something is fix the broken part, not fix the part that works. Yes?"

I agree, there is always room for improvement!

As for the "slap" thing, LOL!
That would only turn out like Ben Stiller and the Capuchin monkey scene in Night at the Museum! LOL!
It would be fun though!

Thanks for your kind words and input.

Mike
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Mike's Monitors!

Good luck with your Prasinus!
Mike
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Mike's Monitors!

Hi Mike, the slap was metaphoric, not literal.

About what happened to your female, I have no idea really. You could explain if you wish. All I heard was she died young.

Also, what ever happened to the offspring? Did you raise any up and what luck did you have with them. Did anyone have success with those hatchlings?

The prasinus are doing great now. One was a little touch and go, but all are putting on weight and growing now. Thanks

Frank
The Stiller/monkey scene was just a wise crack to your metaphor.
Funny scene, have you seen it?

I sold off my hatchlings.
I only know where one small group is, and I would love to get my hands on them!

As for my females age, there's no telling.
I got her when she was an adult...but yes I would say fairly young.

Mike
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Mike's Monitors!

To bad, whenever I breed a new species, I think of the offspring as the animals I work with. They are the important ones.

Please no offense, starting with wild caught adults has two things. One is, they have been raised up and are ready to go. Thats the good part, and two, they can be totally screwed up from capture and import.

So when starting with them, you either get lucky or unlucky. But they are not products of your husbandry regime. So you really do not learn a lot. Remember, that is in perspective to what you will learn after allowing several generations. learning from egg to egg.

Again I congratulate you for supporting those clutches, but its the continued success that really teaches you what is needed.

I think this is the area where I have problems with others. They think on the same plane as you, while what I think is based on achieving generations. What allows some success with one female, may not be what allows success with many females.

One thing is for sure, working with larger monitors you cannot gain the numbers you can with small monitors. They just require so much larger cages. So learning will take much longer.

The problem here is, with larger varanids, it will take many many keepers to gain the experience that one keeper can with smaller monitors, in the same amount of time.

The problem is, people are not willing to take about their failures, and that is where we learn. Its that human ego or pride thing. Unfortunately, its about the monitors. And they could give a crap about our pride or egos. They just go on dying. Too bad. Have a great day

"...my female died as a result of an error on my part."

For the sake of keeping this informative, would you mind sharing what exactly your error was?

I have respect for anyone who's hatched jobiensis -- so please do not misunderstand me -- but if it was an error in husbandry, would it not stand to reason that you did not support reproduction as well as you could have? As I said, this is based on the assumption it was an error in husbandry, and making said assumption only in the interest of informing others. If you've hatched jobiensis, you're obviously not a noob... But if it was, in fact, an error in husbandry, then I do believe Retes is correct... Anyone who has had limited success with Indo types should not rest on their laurels. That'd be a damn shame.

BTW hello, everyone. This is my first post... Hopefully we can share our awesome varanid experiences.

Saurus
I had moved her to a holding cage (I can't recall why).
This cage was in a cooler part of my "reptile room".
I was worried about her getting too cold, so I lowered one light.
She sat under this light and got a burn, my fault!
By the time I got her to the Vet it was infected again my fault!
She was healing well, but soon was over come by the infection.
Mike

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Mike's Monitors!

That's such a bummer Mike. Sorry for your loss.

Mike W

Mike
Yes it is a bummer.
To this day I still beat myself up over it!
I really enjoyed working with Jobiensis and will again.

For now I am working with a group of Similis.
Cool species for sure!

Take care Brother!
Mike

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Mike's Monitors!

There is only one reasonable response to such a situation.

"You big dummy."
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robyn@proexotics.com

ShipYourReptiles.com
Pro Exotics Reptiles

Robyn
That was ugly, but coming from you (ugly) what can you expect! LOL

Merry CHRISTmas and Happy New year Brother.
Mike

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Mike's Monitors!