Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Some comments in the 'scientific names' thread below question the need for preserved specimens in taxonomic work, and make it seem that scientists fill buckets with dead animals, though they don't say why they think so. What's the story with these evil scientists? Why pickle anything?

It appears that these comments refer mostly to the preserved specimens that are listed in the formal descriptions of new species. In fact, at least one such specimen is required by the international code I described previously. This is called the 'holotype' or the 'type specimen', and in a formal sense that type specimen is the standard, the unique hard copy, of that species name. Type specimens are important for several reasons, and are usually kept in separate storage in major museums. This is an old practice – you can locate the type specimen for the great majority of species of organisms that have been described.

The next three paragraphs are details and examples – you can skip over them if you like.

(Let's start with those old type specimens, like those used to name Tupinambis indicus (= V. indicus) in 1802, or Hydrosaurus gouldii (=V. gouldii) in 1838. We know more about Indonesian and Australian monitors today, and many new species have been found in both areas. The original descriptions of those species are quite sketchy, and do not clearly distinguish them from closely-related species.)

(When Kai Philipp, Thomas Ziegler and Wolfgang Boehme discovered that two indicus-like species occurred on Ambon (where the original specimen of V. indicus came from), it was not clear which of the two was V. indicus, and which was new. By reference to the type of V. indicus, they were able to determine that that name referred to the widespread species, and described the new species with the restricted range as V. cerambonensis. In a similar fashion, when Ziegler and Boehme recognized that several species were mixed up in V. indicus on New Guinea, they were again able to sort them out using the type specimens for the previously-described species V. doreanus, V. finschii, and V. jobiensis. Because various European museums have saved preserved specimens collected over the past 200 years, Ziegler and Boehme could give approximate distributions for each of these newly-recognized species (and incidentally showed that V. doreanus and V. finschii also are native to far northern Queensland).

(In 1980, when Glen Storr recognized that there were two species of large monitors masquerading as V. gouldii, he named the other, new species as V. panoptes. Storr did not examine the type specimen of H. gouldii. Boehme later did, and found that Storr had gotten it backwards. By the Code, argus monitors should be called V. gouldii, and what everyone had long called V. gouldii picked up the next-oldest name, V. flavirufus. This was a recipe for a huge mess, and to preserve stability of usage the Commission accepted a substitute type specimen for V. gouldii from Perth, well outside of the range of argus monitors.)

Lots of details, but the main point is this: a type specimen ties a species name to a particular preserved individual animal, and does this because we do not know what the future may hold. Two hundred years from now that specimen still exists, and can be relied upon to settle any questions of identity that may arise. For these reasons, most scientific journals will not publish any description of a new species that lacks a preserved type specimen deposited in a the collection of an established museum.

That's one animal in a jar. All of the descriptions of new monitor species published in the last 100 years have that dead animal, but for most of those species the type specimen was selected to be an animal already long dead, and housed in a museum collection, often for decades. It's been only for those species for which there were no already-preserved specimens that a single animal has been killed to serve as the necessary, standard reference individual. Not talking buckets of dead lizards here, are we?

Museums are in fact rather like libraries – they accept and store a lot of stuff bit by bit, on the assumption that it will be valuable later. Specimens accumulate slowly, over many decades, but taxonomists will seek them out, worldwide, in the course of their work. For most species there are just not that many specimens, in fact. For example, Hans-Georg Horn and I recently completed a paper (not yet published) on V. salvadorii, and we surveyed all of the museums in the world for specimens. How many are there? There are 21, collected here and there across all of New Guinea over the past 150 years.

How many V. salvadorii are imported into the U.S. each year? The live export quota for croc monitors out of Indonesia averages about 500/year, and that quota is a low estimate of the numbers actually exported. How many croc monitors die each year in captivity? I would be willing to bet it's more than 20, and thus more than the total number of croc monitors ever taken from the wild by "evil scientists".

What happens to all of those dead captive crocs? How many of them were donated to museums? I found 3, worldwide. Would anyone care to offer an opinion as to who is wasting a resource here?

I knew this even before you came to me, but nevertheless you said nothing about your paper, you even said on franks forum that there was no book (paper on the work) perhaps if you’d have been more honest with me, I would have shared with you and horn.
Hers something you don’t know about CITES they fill the quotas with fictive heads, therefore there is actually less animals then the documents says, often more then halve less.
Why I don’t know but its like this with many African CITES too!

np
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Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

Those numbers you speak of are they for live or skins or both?

To do that accurate you'd need to know the number that came in for the pet trade itself not just the total number of quotas. Unless of course you are going by the live and not skins.

Salvator has a higher number of quota why didnt you use them? is it because 3/4 of that is used for skins?

All be it the pet trade ads to those numbers but it is the lesser of the two evils.

Here is a question if I found a pair of monitors on an island and they were the last 2 would it be better to place them in a jar or send them to a breeder? Or even still leave them be and hope they produce before the island is wiped out?

Which leads me into when they get worried about populations why not reintroduce captive born young back out to the wild? I hope you do not say cause they wouldnt make it. I bet you they can and will. We have proof of that here in florida many times over.

Oh yeah and even though you said not to read it all I did this time. As the last time you seemed to think I was bad for not. Kind of ironic don't you think?

That's the live export quota for crocs, Jody, so I assume almost all are going to the pet trade. I didn't use salvator because I was comparing it to the number of scientist-shot crocs in museum collections, and I don't know what that number would be for salvator (more, but who knows how many).

When you're down to two, it's time to take them in, in my opinion, but no chance they'd go to a private breeder, no matter how good he/she was. Gummint will make sure of that. Chances are, they're stuffed by then anyway.

Some captive breeding and reintroduction programs have worked, but sadly, most have not. The ones that work tend to be for things that are ecological generalists (like planting bass or sunfish in a pond), and usually those aren't threatened with extinction either. It is much harder to pull this off with ecological specialists -- look at Calif. condors, for example. From a small captive flock and the last few wild birds taken in in the late 1980s, there are now about 250 condors alive, most of them bred in captivity. Something like 100 of these have been released back into the wild. Quite a few have died, and only in the last two-three years have there been any breeding attempts in the wild, and all but one of those has failed. It's a huge effort, something like $35 million so far, and it will have to go on a lot longer before there is even a gambler's chance it will succeed. Captive breeding has worked, but the reintroduction isn't working, so far. Sadly, a lotta things go that way.

It's a farkofalot easier to preserve enough habitat before it's too late, because it turns out that Mother Nature is still better at breeding things than we are.

Ok I am glad you used live quotas or it wouldn't of made much sense. But that still is the hypothetical number that can be taken, it is not the number taken. Wouldn't it be a better or more accurate science to take the actual figures and work them out?

I see we sort of agree on the second part about the last 2 remaining.

Now the last about reintroducing. Now I see you used birds and other animals as examples. Why use them they are much more prone to not making it then a reptile. That has been proven time and time again. there are plenty of examples of reptiles making it after being let go. Come down for a visit i will show you my animals and all of the examples running around florida.

For example the niles in cape coral, the cuban anoles, tree frogs, etc.

It takes many generations to wipe out the wild in them. If bred and returned to their land I have no doubt they would live on. Of course the land has to be there and kept safe first.

That croc export quota is filled every year, Jody, and if you add up the numbers that are reported as being imported into the US, Europe and Japan alone, they are more than the total worldwide export quota in most years. It's a fair number of animals.

We are talking apples and oranges about (re)introductions. My point is that the introductions that 'take', for example in south Florida, are almost (or all) "garbage animals", things that are dirt common where they are native, probably because they are highly adaptable and breed fast. Those are not the species that become endangered -- instead, it's the things that have very specialized requirements that tend to be affected first by environmental degradation, and those are the species you'll need to be able to breed in captivity and successfully reintroduce. That's a heap harder. The same reasons that make them susceptible to extinction in nature make them tough to keep in captivity, and there's no point in reintroducing them anyway, if you haven't reversed whatever the environmental factors were that led to them becoming rare in the first place.

Sure, there are lots of iguanas and Niles in Florida, but how many V. prasinus colonies do you know about?

Sam,

There are many many species of reptiles here. From amievas, tegus, monitors, to pythons and boas.

I myself have seen the burms, redtail boas, green amievas, basalisks, nile monitor, water monitor, even a mangrove (hehe oops), spiny tail iguanas, green iguanas, and various small agamas.

I am sure there are many others I have not seen yet.

The mangrove I mention was mine, it escaped as a baby. It lived in the wooded lot next to my house. It grew up in that very lot as it took me a little over a year to catch him. He escaped at only around 16 inches total length and was 3 foot when I caught him.

It amazed me how easy they can take to a new surrounding. I don't think it would be to hard to establish prasinus here either. If you pick out the habitat and let them go i am sure they will do just fine.

Now as you said, and I already mentioned. In order to re- introduce them you'll need to first make sure the land is safe. That would be the biggest hurdle to jump over.

Seeing your letting them go back into the habitat you collected them or the parents, I do not see why they would not thrive. The animals here do not live here naturaly yet they have made it just fine.

I think the point that Sam was trying to make (he'll correct me if I am wrong on this) is that the species of reptiles that have established themselves in Florida are usually generalists. The list you just provided is a list of generalist species that would adapt well to a wide range of habitats. There's a reason that animals like burmese pythons, red-tailed boas, nile monitors, green iguanas etc have such huge ranges in the wild (yes, even mangrove monitors).

Try introducing something that is rarer because it is more specialised, such as Varanus olivaceous, and see what happens.

Rats are a mammal and are very good at coping with introduction anywhere, for they are extremely adaptable, but to say that pandas should adapt equally well because they are also a mammal would of course be untrue. This is an extreme case, yes, but there are grades of adaptability and often the endangered species become that way because they are a little less adaptable to start with (therefore have a limited range and a limited number of places they can live).

That is why I said your letting them go back into there natural habitat.

I am not saying take them in breed them and let them looose in the french alps. If they are a specialist living in this enviroment and you save that area then re-introduce them to that same areaa how the heck can you say they wont adapt? adapt to what they lived there before.

I was showing how these non native reptiles can revert back to being wild and fending for themselves here is all. I was not saying let them loose in my back yard to save them.

This is all hypothetical and may never be done, but I wanted to see why he thought it would not work. The only reason I got back is as you said which makes no sense within the context of what i am talking about. Now if you change it to fit as you both are talking about it does.

ah, okay. I agree that reptiles do tend to cope with being released into the wild after being raised in captivity, provided that the environment is suitable for them (which is where the adaptability bit comes in - how far from their native environment would they still cope) and they find adequate shelter from predators quickly enough. Food is less of an issue for they can go for a fair while without it while learning to find the local food sources.

With rare species, however, it isn't often that they are disappearing because someone is removing the animals from the environment so that captive breeding will help save the species. Usually there is some other factor involved (introduced rats eating the eggs, habitat destruction, competition with introduced species, removal of their prime food source, environmental toxins - who knows?)so the released animals will die off as did the wild born ones that preceded them.

Conservation biologists don't usually advocate captive breeding except as a last resort (doesn't mean it hasn't happened), I think because experience has taught two things.

The first is that the reasons why a particular species has declined are often really hard to fix up -- they don't usually have anything to do with an inability of the remaining animals to breed. They breed just fine, the young just don't make it. Until you reverse the causes of decline out in nature, it's a waste of time to put CB animals out there to die also. You've said this too, so we all agree on that. What that means, though, is that if the habitat is OK, the animals don't usually need our help in captivity.

The second is that captive breeding gets expensive quickly, meaning there is less money available for, and often less emphasis on, securing and fixing up habitat. Captive breeding makes good TV (finally, we're doing something), while making some area a reserve doesn't (it just sits there, and you can't pet the babies). In a less cuddly sense, outfits that want to chew up a place will sometimes offer to pay to "just breed 'em in a cage, and set 'em free", again with a lot of TV coverage. Free to where, is the point.

Two examples. Houston Zoo got a bunch of money to breed Houston toads and put the juveniles back in places where the species used to occur. They bred a bunch (released something like a million toadlets at about 30 places over 5 years, if I recall rightly). Nobody ever saw any of them again, and those 30 places still have no Houston toads. Nobody knows what went wrong, but the guessing is that some habitat feature had changed, and it wasn't addressed in part because all the money went into captive breeding.

Close to where I live here the university owns about 20 acres of dunes bordering the beach. The feds (USFWS) made them close it to partying and dogs, because an almost-extinct shorebird sometimes tried to breed there. Everybody hated that, because then they only had the other 20 miles of beaches here to party and run dogs on. Funny thing, in the next three years they had 3, then 30-some, then almost a hundred of these birds hatch out there and make it, basically because people and dogs weren't running the parent birds off all the time so crows could pinch the eggs and hatchlings.

If the habitat is OK, mother nature is still the best breeder.

I think it would be a good idea to transplant all the komodo babies all the US and S.E. Asian zoos have to some of the lesser islands where komodos once reigned supreme - give them some good bacterial flora of Proteus morgani, and let them go, and see what happens. I am sure H.M. the King would not object, as it would be good tv...and as recent depletions of the komodo range was effected by fires, why not? Those islands are not severely or even remotely effected by depletion of those natural resources by the local people there, and it would be good PR on all accounts I think....no sense having some of these beautiful animals sit in little known zoos, on concrete floors... let some of them go home....

cheers,
markb

I agree with you on this one. It is a good example of what I was talking about.

Good Post Sam,

This may not have much interest to keepers, but it can be useful! When looking over museum specimens of a single species, you can see variety among them, which is to be expected.

As you see variety in V. albigularis, you see the same thing in all the people you meet everyday - they all have slightly different features, behave differently, approach solutions to the same problems differently, and yet when you look at their skulls (in an Anthropology museum, or a local 'bone store') you see that their skulls are remarkably similar, if not virtually identical. The variations in the skulls, i.e. width, length, teeth, eye sockets etc...determined the seven races of people, and also Phrenology, and even eugenics....but their skulls are all basically the same, only slight variations of a theme, due principally to where on the Earth you live = the same is for V. albigularis; so if you wish to call different local V. albigulais different species go right ahead, but by the same application you also call humans different species too (but that is not politically correct! Oh no!) - and then the next questions comes to mind, "Who came first?" and then it becomes a hotbed of contention (for Homo sapiens anyways), and then they dismiss this idea of 'race' or subspecies for Homo sapiens, but not for other zoologica. Why? ...for V. albigularis, they are a species diversifying, adapting to their habitats and niches, but they are still the same inside; if your bones are the same, but your features vary, your still a V. albiglaris.

When you, or anyone, and this is easy to do: walk into a Natural History Museum or University Museum, you can examine their Varanus specimens yourself, and see them, hold them, photograph them, see where they were from, and this gives you a chance to compare/contrast what you hold from a pickle jar to what lives with you at home, and you can learn alot from this.

Many insights can be gained from this, and gives you knowledge and 'hands-on' experience with the animals there; if you keep them in captivity, you can see them, smell them, and watch them do things you never see in a museum or in the field; and in the field you can see other things, like 25 of them under a single rock - oops, that was 1 animal wasn't it? You have more to compare and contrast, and you learn more.... and that is what it is all about, learning something new everyday...

I once recieved 20 or was it 25 V. albigularis from Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania that I was told were 2 feet total length = they were 2 foot SVL! They were right off the boat, covered in African soils, poop, and hundreds of ticks. I bathed and watered the animals, removed the dirt and each tick. Years later, I had the ticks identified, and 2 of them were very rare, 1 not having been seen on Varanus since 1905. The other was a possible vector for a deadly pathogen. That little paper taught me alot, and you can do the same (Jody) with the animals you get - even little things like this can help offer insight into their World otherwise not known....Doing 'Science' can be fun, and not as hard as it seemed in high school biology class.

So the 'evil' scientist is not so evil, and the keeper can contribute and enjoy their animals, and we can help one another more than you imagine....I was given a very generous gift from the local pet shop here: a deceased male 7 foot V. salvadorii that they would have otherwise thrown in the trash. In examining it up close, inside and out, I learned many things about it, and will be sharing that soon....among other things of this most mysteriously impressive varanid.... you can do the same... it is all about passion for the animals and curiosity.

Cheers,
mbayless

Do you really call all humans the same name? Do you not call asians, oriental?

You see in fact we do have different names for them humans is the tree, your forgetting the branches again.

I do not argue of that not being an albigularis, I argue that is the tree and you then need to name the branches.

Hi Jody,

Sure, I call them asians, blacks, etc...but they are all Homo sapiens.... based on osteological morphology, which is a genetic trait passed on = they are the same in this way; their guts are the same, arranged the same (but there is a malady where the organs can be reversed!) etc...

The branches can be varying as we all know and accept - but I attribute this to environment, and not necessarily genetic trait or related to it. All of these variety merely allow the species advantges to their environment, with the better equiped to succeed and breed, while the lesser so animals do not = nature. There is great variety in a single clutch, in a regional locality, and in a regional climatic zone of Africa, or wherever you choose to look. But when you examine them in detail, count scales, photograph hundreds of animals, a picture begins to emerge. With most wild varanids, we are in our infancy of understanding them, and I am trying to present the basic data about them: [1]Where do they live? [2]What climate do they live in? [3]How many are there (in Africa)? and [4]their reproductive biology. I am working on all of them simutaneously, partially published some of these topics at hand, working on others, and always collecting information about them in many ways...like I always do....and for which you have helped me = Thank you!

I draw the line of species level for V. albigularis at the bone structure, and others do not....the argument of genetic vrs environment has been a 'bone' of contention since the Gene theory came to evolve and grow (like Gregor Mendels pea plants did!), which prevails, which influences an organism more? It is a tough question, and hard answers....if you look at identical twins, both are identical genetically identical and live in same habitat (home), while 1 goes to university and the other becomes a whoring heroin addict...why? How did that happen? Was it genetics or environment? One would conclude environment was the factor....and this is how we see differences in individuals too, V. albigularis included. They learn, they process new information and apply what they can to do and what their instinct dictates....hence we see variety in them too; Behavior is merely a reflection on their enviroment, so does genetic or environment guide their behavior? Both do. This can be seen differently in animals from different localities - but do these differences in scalation, size, behavior make it a full species? Does it make it a subspecies? If it does, then we need to address that (blasted) question too: What is a subspecies? And that is as hard as deciding what is a species!?

The ICZN makes these decisions, and the rules for applying them; they may not be perfect rules, but they are what we have to work with....and we have to start somewhere when we want to answer a question like, "What is that?" - and that can be a damn hard question sometimes!

Cheers Jody,
markb

I fear we will never agree on this one.

I see the earth the tree and branches. Earth (homo sapiens), tree (humans) , branches (asians, whites, hispanic). You can do the samething with monitors. Earth (varanus), tree (albigularis), branches (ionidesi, microstictus,angolensis).

Now if I got what your saying correctly you say it is merely varanus, then varanus albigularis? In other words instead of being two different types you care calling them cousins? Which in humans would make you both the same branch. You no longer want to use subspecies for some or all because they are all the samething.

Or else I am reading your posts all wrong perhaps?

As for what makes a subspecies if you can't find a reason and need one, just use casue I said so LOL It works for me and it seems to have worked for others.

Hi Jody,

I see V. albigularis simply as 1 species, or branch of the tree
Varanus - sure local variety, but all V. albigularis with no subspecies here. I consider V. yemenensis the junction between V. yemenensus [Y] and V. albigularis... I believe there were 2 invasions of Varanus into Africa at separate times, with V. griseus and V. niloticus [ca. ~14 MYA] entering first, and V. albigularis [~5 MYA] came in much later....

I bring up subspecies as its definition is abit hazy and not entirely used in the same way for ALL species, Families, etc... and that is where it is confusing sometimes....so to apply geographical separation between a species as subspecific status if fine, but when there is none, as in V. albigularis, then that cannot be used as a determining factor for this status. See what I mean?

Anyway I hope your animals are good, life is returning to semi-normal considering the bantering of storms you have had, and that he dogs have calmed down from all the ruckuss....

Cheers Jody,
markb

I see the earth the tree and branches. Earth (homo sapiens), tree (humans) , branches (asians, whites, hispanic). You can do the samething with monitors. Earth (varanus), tree (albigularis), branches (ionidesi, microstictus,angolensis).

Now if I got what your saying correctly you say it is merely varanus, then varanus albigularis? In other words instead of being two different types you care calling them cousins? Which in humans would make you both the same branch. You no longer want to use subspecies for some or all because they are all the samething.

In how you see them. I still see them as seperate, even if there are no boundries to keep them apart. Even in the wide open space one can still find his own place.

Looks we will remain at a disagreement on them then. Oh well no big deal, if we all agreed it would be boring.

Yes life is getting back to normal here. Ranting on here has taken my mind off things.

?

Thats right, when your feeling down, or a hurricane messes up your block. Just come on here and you'll find something to make you laugh.

Well Mark I finally get why you think how you do. Its so clear to me now(for the moment) You seem the take a type of animal as a solid object and think of them from there.

In several of the paragraphs lately, you say, that it must be the different habitat that is causing the local differences in the Albigs. In this I agree, as in, totally agree.

I believe the wall that separates our thinking is which comes first, the horse or the cart. you think what drives Albigs is the exsisting Albigs(the cart) I and I think most biologist or at least many(I hope) believe its the enviornment, more specifically, the habitat, drives, controls and determines the evolution of a species.

As the habitat changes and it surely has and does, the exsisting species, must change to fit it, or become extinct. But please, its not so simple, any givin species, lives in and exsists in, a perfered habitat thats normal for its species. At the same time, that species explores marginal habitats, in which to colonize. Exsistance in marginal habitat, is either temporary or the colonies must change and adapt. Maybe Sam can help you with this, I am sure he can explain it better.

Remember, Africa is in a prolonged period of desertification(god I hope thats a good word)(drying out), and thats possibly the cause for the migration of characteristics amoung different albigs. The changing of the continent is causing islands of Albigs, when in historical times, they were more continious.

I believe, what I just explained, is considered a major cause of speciation(the development of new biological groups)

Its the enviornment(the horse) that causes speciation, not the species. Thank you FR

fr,
THIS IS BIOLOGY - ECOLOGY AND ALL THE DYNAMICS THERE-OF = THIS IS WHAT ALL SPECIES DO, HUMANS INCLUDED. YOU LEARN THIS THINKING AND DYNAMICS IN ECOLOGY/EVOLUTION CLASSES 101.... = ADAPTIVE RADIATION.

YOUR TERM 'DESERTIFICATION' IS A VALID ONE. NORTH AFRICA HAS BEEN DRYING UP FOR MILLENIA; SO HAS SOUTH AFRICA. IF THE HABITATS AND RAINFORESTS REMAIN AS THEY ARE RIGHT NOW IN CENTRAL - EQUATORIAL AFRICA, 'MAYBE' AFRICA'S ECOSYSTEMS HAVE A SMALL CHANCE TO SURVIVE, AND THE ANIMALS THAT LIVE THERE TOO.... BUT THAT IS NOT LIKELY = THE RAPE OF NATURAL RESOURCES BY THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES IS SIMPLE: THEY HAVE TO LIVE AND TAKE WHAT THEY NEED, AND THE ENVIRONMENT SUFFERS FOR IT, BUT MAN WILL BE GET HIS WHEN THE RESOURCES ARE ALL BUT GONE, AND NOBODY CAN HELP THEM = LOCAL EXTINCTION. THIS IS A NATURAL PROCESS. BUT I DIGRESS.

As the habitat changes and it surely has and does, the exsisting species, must change to fit it, or become extinct. But please, its not so simple, any givin species, lives in and exsists in, a perfered habitat thats normal for its species. At the same time, that species explores marginal habitats, in which to colonize.

MANY THINGS AFFECT AN ANIMALS LOCATION IN THEIR ENVIRONMENT; FIRE, POPULATION DENSITY, PREDATORS, MAN, HABITAT LOSS, ECT... LOOK AT VARANUS RUDICOLLIS FOR ITS EXPLORATION OF MARGINAL HABITATS FOR INSTANCE, FROM PRIMARY LOWLAND RAINFORESTS TO OIL PALM ESTATES....THESE ANIMALS' NATURAL HABITATS ARE BEING GREATLY DESTROYED SO THEY ARE MOVING INTO ARTIFICIAL HABITATS SUCH AS OIL PALM ESTATES; ALBIGULARIS AND EVERY OTHER VARANUS DO THIS TOO....

Exsistance in marginal habitat, is either temporary or the colonies must change and adapt. Maybe Sam can help you with this, I am sure he can explain it better.

I AM VERY WELL AWARE OF THIS CONDITIONS AND HOW IT WORKS THANK YOU FOR THE REFERRAL BUT NOT REQUIRED....BUT SAM COULD TEACH YOU A FEW THINGS ABOUT ZOOLOGY I BET.

Remember, Africa is in a prolonged period of desertification(god I hope thats a good word)(drying out), and thats possibly the cause for the migration of characteristics amoung different albigs. The changing of the continent is causing islands of Albigs, when in historical times, they were more continious.

SHELTER, WATER AND FOOD ARE PRIMARY REASONS FOR MIGRATION. WHEN THE RUANDA/BURUNDI WAR BEGAN, V. ALBIGULARIS WERE SEEN FEEDING ON ALL THE 800,000 BODIES STREW ALL OVER THE PLACE, AS WELL AS V. NILOTICUS. THEY DO NOT USUALLY FEED ON THIS, BUT THEY ARE OPPORTUNISTIC PREDATORS. ANIMALS ARE STATIC ANIMALS IF YOU THINK I THINK THAT, BUT RATHER VERY FLUID IN THEIR ABILITY TO ADAPT, CHANGE AND ADJUST TO THEIR SURROUNDINGS - I.E. A WC VARANID ENDING UP IN YOUR HOME AND LIVING WITH YOU FOR YEARS, EATING, MATING, ECT....DO WE ADAPT SO EASILY TO SUCH CONDITIONS (= PRISON)? MY FATHER CLAIMED 'NO WE DO NOT!' HE WOULD KNOW, HE WAS SHIPPED AROUND LIKE A COMMON SAVANNAH FROM CAGE TO CAGE CAUSE HE WAS GOOD AT ESCAPING FROM THEIR CAGES - BUT LIKE MOST VARANIDS DID NOT GET VERY FAR BEFORE GETTING RECAPTURED. HAHAHA.

I believe, what I just explained, is considered a major cause of speciation(the development of new biological groups)

AS MENTIONED ABOVE, SPECIATION OCCURS THROUGH A VARIETY OF REASONS, AND FOR A BEAUTIFUL FUN READ ON THIS I RECOMMEND 'THE BEAK OF THE FINCH' BY JOHNATHAN WEINER. ANOTHER GOOD LITTLE BOOK ON ANIMAL SPECIATION IS 'ANIMAL SPECIES AND THEIR EVOLUTION' BY A.J. CAIN. THESE TWO BOOKS WILL INFORM YOU ABOUT HOW BOTH GENETICS AND ENVIRONMENT SUBTLEY OR ABRUPTLY EFFECT AN ANIMALS' POPULATION CHANGE THROUGH TIME, SOMETIMES VERY SHORT TIME!

cheers,
mbayless

Its the enviornment(the horse) that causes speciation, not the species.

I can't fathom to understand how you would defend, the first thing to do to a possible new species, is to kill it and stick it in a jar.

Saying it's been done and it's the rules, really falls into the same trap of wc is ok because at one point they all were wc. Just because those are the rules or the way it has been done for hundreds of years does not make them good. I for one would have alot more respect for you if you would say, the rules suck, but it takes time to change them, or there are problems, but they are not simple to address. I think very few people think the pet trade is good in any sense of the word, everyone seems to have ideas on how to fix it, but it is not a simple matter, but at least hobbyists (at least most of them) admit that.

I like to think of this as more potential than waste (glass half full). I think a live monitor has a whole lot more potential than a dead one.

I do not think anyone claimed that populations are endangered by crazy scientists running around sticking animals in jars. It's more of a point of disgust that the first glimpse of a new species, is a dead specimen, that was killed for no other reason than to fit it in a jar (that money thing sucks doesn't it, academics are by no means free of that evil).

Can you tell me why a dead animal in a jar is better than a live one in a cage for species description, that isn't based on money? Sure it will eventually die, then you can preserve it, but killing it outright is repulsive to alot here.

--Robert

Robert,

I don't like it personally, but that's really not the point. I've handled and worked with maybe a thousand individual monitors myself (mostly in the wild), and I've killed one. A gravid female glebopalma ran under my truck on a dirt track and I got her with the back wheel -- I felt badly about that. However, yes I would kill and pickle a specimen of a new species of monitor if my option to find one already preserved in a museum collection didn't pan out. You could also keep the animals as captives, and delay describing the species until an individual died. That isn't often done (because someone else who lacks your ethics will happily off one and "steal" whatever effort you put into the discovery), but there is nothing wrong with that concept.

The rules of zoological nomenclature don't suck, and I do defend them, for the reasons I listed, and others. There is no substitute for a preserved specimen as the type of a new species. Too many bad things can happen to a living type specimen, period, end of discussion. As I said above, this is done for the future, quite possibly for future uses that neither you nor I can now imagine. Do you suppose that Linnaeus anticipated gene sequencing? People have sequenced genes from specimens that were preserved in Linnaeus's time. I am not going to speculate on what biotechnology may be able to achieve in a decade, let alone a century, other than to point out that some Australians are hard at work trying to conjure up a living thylacine (Tasmanian wolf) from DNA taken from preserved museum specimens. Jurassic Park, no, not in my imagination, but if you have a complete gene sequence for something, my imagination is less constrained. I am glad that there are pickled thylacines, and passenger pigeons, and yes, even bits of a dodo.

I think you're focusing too narrowly here: Do you feel the same way about someone killing a type specimen for a new species of fly or rat? If not, that goes a long way towards clarifying the issues -- the rules are OK except for animals I like.

Interestingly, I think most of the specific recent cases that people here have in mind did not involve scientists as the original, field collectors of the animals (V. mabitang is the exception). Instead, at least one dealer/exporter had groups of each of the new species in hand, and cut some deal to make them available for description. I don't know those specifics, and likely would not have been party to the deals I suspect were made, but that's a separate issue.

What I'd like to know is how many of those animals died while the exporters/dealers had them, and what happened to those dead monitors? I bet you a nickle they got thrown in a ditch, because their value was felt to be zero unless they were alive. Is that a waste? You betcha.

Now, for those who want to believe that they just couldn't bring themselves to kill a monitor, and want to condemn anybody who would defend doing so, there is self-evident hypocrisy here if you've ever bought a CH or WC animal. No need for much more discussion of that, I think.

Lastly, I don't actually understand what you mean by 'money thing' -- is there some idea out there that a scientist gets a 'bonus' for describing a new species or something? Jeez, tell me where, I need to move! What actually happens, once your paper is accepted for publication in some scientific journal, is that you get a bill from the journal for "page charges" -- most journals ask for, and some demand, payment of around $100 per printed page to offset their costs. How much of a money thing is that?

>I don't like it personally, but that's really not the point.

>I've handled and worked with maybe a thousand individual
>monitors myself (mostly in the wild), and I've killed one.
>A gravid female glebopalma ran under my truck on a dirt track
>and I got her with the back wheel -- I felt badly about that.

I respect that.

I do see your points, but you must understand you are in a captive monitor forum. While you may be repulsed by 24/7 lights, there are many advantages and reasons to do it. By the same token, a biologist (not necessarily you) offing a monitor so all we see is a dead lizard, can be repulsive here.

I have no real problem with people killing animals, but I do think that perhaps at some point we should evolve beyond the kill anything new and throw it in a museum as a trophy. While there may be good things about doing that, it does seem wasteful and a touch barbaric. Just because there are risks, does not mean the easy way is the right way.

There is a huge difference between putting a hammer to a monitor's head and a wc one in a cage. Perhaps in certain cases the hammer would be the better option, but if it really was the same thing, you wouldn't have any monitors at all, would you? Those ancestors of your crocs and gouldis would've gotten the hammer. That was my point, sometimes a live monitor can give alot more than a dead monitor.

I don't necessarily think new species should be immediately shipped off to breeders, nor do I like what the pet trade is. The shady deals were exactly that. I'd prefer monitors to be valued more in their country of origin. There is little I can do to change this. It is not a simple thing, and it is not a biological problem (conservation), it is an economic/resource problem, which there is no real or easy solution for.

About money, it costs money to keep monitors, and it costs money to care for them. It is cheap to keep them pickled in a jar in the basement.

--Robert

Hi Sam and Robert,

I recieved a new Varanus species in 1994, a solid green V. indicus related unknown species from a friend of mine. She was small, and I learned later normal size for her sex. She preferred shell fish 3x-5x/week. She dropped eggs for me
2x-3x/year like clockwork for 8 years. I talked to many herpetologists and Curators about her; all of them concluded as I did immediately she was/is a new unknown species...one esteemed Curator of a Museum told me to inject (= kill) her; he even offered to do this for me as I said I could not do that to her, or any healthy Varanus. He told me emphatically he would be glad to do this for me, no problem. I declined his offer emphatically as well.

She passed away while I was in hopsital kicking the bucket myself in 2001; I survived while she did not. She is in my freezer now, waiting formal description which is forth-coming, and will NOT be named after anyones wife, dog, breeder/dealer, exporter or any such thing as that. She will be given the name the local people of the island(s) she comes from call her by. I was told that some people have auctioned off 'scientific names' and that was amusing, and I considered naming her after the W.W. II US Naval personell who positively identified her on said island(s) while fighting japanese there....

I too have a problem with finding an animal and then pickling it for scientific merit/holotype right away; I do admire the efforts of Maren Gaulke with Varanus mabitang who captured, observed and released their holotype back into the jungle as they considered them exceedingly rare/endangered. I like that. I also like that V. melinus specimens were collected (not from Obi as depicted!) and kept at the museum as living exhibits - at least that shows compassion for the animals as marvelous examples of Natures Wonders....if I recall correctly, wasn't a lizard found in the stomach of a snake or a goanna that proven to be a holotype or perhaps a paratype specimen some time ago??

I hope the days of collecting every living thing not only in pairs but by the hundreds is not taken as recklessly as it once was...and that with endangered habitats, come endangered species, and that we should not take all of them simply for study sake down the road; furthermore, we should not allow the pet/skin trade to squander off thousands of them either all for the mighty 'yankee dollar' as was done with V. melinus....and we still do not know the ramifications of that fiasco do we!

cheers,
mbayless

This thread has been moved from the Monitors forum.
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PHWyvern