Gregg, there are many lizards that live in groups in the wild, so I disagree with your statement that there are no social reptiles. They don't have the same social structure as a social mammal, but there are many species that are commonly seen in groups for reasons other than simple common environmental needs. If it were purely environmental needs that governed those groups being together, then the groups wouldn't have a predictable structure and should be a random assortment of adults and juveniles, males and females. By way of example, when I go looking for monitors around here, two lizards I frequently encounter are eastern water dragons, Physignathus lesueurii lesueurii, and Cunningham's skinks, Egernia cunninghami. Whenever I see more than one water dragon in an area it will usually be a pair (one male and one female) or a group of one male and several females. They're quite site loyal, so if I see a pair in a spot I know where to start looking for them the next time I have overseas herpers visiting that have never seen one in the wild. The same pair will always be there, unless something happens to one of them. I've also taken videos of females signalling to each other by bobbing their heads and waving their arms, while the male looks on from a few metres away.

Cunningham's skinks have a different social structure, for they live in family groups consisting of an adult breeding pair, young from previous years and the current litter of offspring. If you see one adult Cunningham's skink in a rock crevice, hang around patiently and you'll often see other heads poking out to look at you after a short while. An acquaintance of mine did his postgraduate thesis on these skinks, looking at their DNA. What he discovered was that they went to great lengths to avoid inbreeding and the original pair in the group were the only ones to produce offspring. If young from previous years stayed around until they were adults themselves they still did not mate with their parents, or each other.

Having said all of this, I do agree that monitors are not one of the social lizards. Certainly not the large, free roaming monitors that I am most familiar with. When they are found together, there's a common feature of the environment they are after, rather than each other's company (mating season aside). That doesn't mean keeping them together in pairs in captivity is a bad thing, though, for once they get used to each other it removes the danger of repetitive reintroductions. Introducing two large monitors with sharp teeth is a nail-biting experience that no one wants to be going through on a regular basis.

GM - "A lot of behaviors you see in captivity are nothing like what you would see in the wild."
WS -" Of course they are, they are exactly as you would see in the wild; given a similar set of supporting environmental contitions or stimuli."...Well, if the keeper offers limited choices in the enclosue...
Ah, but there's one thing we can't supply in captivity that's at the crux of this whole issue and that thing is unlimited space. All enclosures are limited.

As Gregg said:
GM- "We are keeping these lizards in boxes. We are forcing them into situation they would normally not partake in in a wild situation.

Will, no enclosure offers the same options as the wild does, so no matter how large you think it is or how many basking spots and hide spots it offers, the monitors in that enclosure are still forced to live within a distance they may not chose to in the wild. In that sense their behaviour in captivity is definitely greatly altered from what it would be in the wild. If the enclosure were 3m long one might say "they are always within three metres of each other". To assume that was also the case in the wild would be an error.

No two hide spots are exactly the same as far as the monitors are concerned, either, so finding captive monitors together in the same hide spot doesn't necessarily mean they do so out of a need for each other's company, even though the other hide spots in the enclosure 'seem' to be the same to our primitive human senses. One thing I've noticed with wild monitors is that they will often use the same basking spots as other monitors of the same species, apparently picking out the tree by scent, as long as the original monitor which marked the tree is not there. That's one of the explanations for situations in which a keeper has had two monitors escape at different times, but has found both monitors hiding in the same spot or tree. The other explanation is that two monitors of the same species will likely have similar instincts as to what constitutes a good hide spot.

The other factor to take into account with captives when it comes to observing their preferences to 'hang out together' vs 'do their own thing' is our biased and flawed memory, which is subject to what has been referred to by some authors as 'availability error'. What this means is that some memories are more immediately available for recall than others because they seem more important to us. Most of us will photograph two monitors when they are lying together with their arms around each other because we are subject to anthropomorphisms and it makes for a cute photograph. We rarely photograph a pair of monitors when they are at opposite ends of the enclosure because 1. it is difficult to get them both in frame and 2. because there's no neat story we can tell about that photo other than that they were 'doing their own thing'. However, if you were to put a time lapse camera on an enclosure containing a pair (and the female isn't going through a reproductive cycle, for they really are inseparable then), you'd find that sometimes they are together and sometimes they are not. If the enclosure was the size of the great outdoors, the chances of finding them together would be slim.

Again, as I said before, that's not to say keeping them together in captivity is a bad thing, but to assume that because they get along in captivity they must be social in the wild would be incorrect.

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