Some monitors

[Ryan Wunsch]

Found a few pictures of some monitors I’ve kept over the years.

Blue Ornate (Nile) monitor
I’ve never had a nile monitor that didn’t hate humans, this beauty was no exception.





Sometimes water monitors can “tame” to be very tractable. Not this beast…. I got him after he hospitalized his previous owner. I kept him for about 4 years, and he is now on display at Herpetelogical Gardens in Maple Creek.







When they are hungry, they will eat as much as you offer them…..






The friendliest monitor we ever kept, and also the largest Black Roughneck monitor we ever had.






These are the argus monitors. I’d like to keep them, but I’m not sure If I’ll have room for large enough cage upstairs once I am done re-organizing all of my other reptiles.




They are one of a handful of monitor lizards that will stand up to get a better view. They seem like the smartest monitors I’ve ever kept, almost bird like in the way they act, but their movements reminds me of dinosaurs. Believed to be quite closely related to Komodo Dragons as compared to other monitor lizards.



Here he is climbing in a tree branch. This cage was originally built for crocodile monitors, but with the addition of a couple of thousand pounds of river bank sand, treated the argus monitors pretty good. (Another picture of the cage will be (or is already, depending on when you are reading this) in the housing forum.

[Ryan]

Great pics Ryan, that Blue Nile is incredible!! I really like the pic of the Argus standing tall too.

[Shawn(snakebite)]

Great piks Ryan!!!, you had some beautiful specimens , no doubt!!

[Ryan]

You'll have to show those Argus to me one of these days Ryan. I'm trying to decide on how to use some of the extra space in the basement and right now it's between a larger monitor species or a dwarf caimen, I'm leaning more towards the monitors at the moment.

[Shawn(snakebite)]

Hey Ryan what did you do with your Sav ? I remember you had one when I met you in Regina at the mall by the Galaxy theatre.Was it a good one to handle, cuz mine is a little B**ch!!! I beleive the other Ryan (Wilker) has a nasty little dude as well.I seem to get nasty little tempered guys lately for my lizard choices. Oh well , makes it more fun!!

[Ryan Wunsch]

shawn said:

Hey Ryan what did you do with your Sav ? I remember you had one when I met you in Regina at the mall by the Galaxy theatre.Was it a good one to handle, cuz mine is a little B**ch!!! I beleive the other Ryan (Wilker) has a nasty little dude as well.I seem to get nasty little tempered guys lately for my lizard choices. Oh well , makes it more fun!!

I've kept quite a few Sav's over the years, and it seemed that most of the tractable ones became "little bitches" after they got healthy. There were a few exceptions, my favorite sav's were killed in a fire though.

But as far as monitors go, even the nastiest savs are easy to handle safely compared to most other slimmer and quicker types in my experience.

But the best advice I can offer about handling Sav's....

- They can spray juicy smelly deficate all over the place, so always aim them away from your face.

You don't get this kind of info in books....

Ryan

[Ryan]

Was it a good one to handle, cuz mine is a little B**ch!!! I beleive the other Ryan (Wilker) has a nasty little dude as well.

Yeah mine is a nasty little bastard but he's getting better now, can't say I blame him for his attitude after the start to his life but hopefully he'll end up a lap Sav. I wouldn't mind getting one or two more Savs actually, they really are cool monitors.

[viperdragons]

how lg of an enclosure would I need to house 2 savannah monitors together or would I be better to keep them separated want to make an xlg enclosure to give them both more room. or would they be happier in smaller enclosures by themselves. They do not currently reside together. one is quite nasty the other is very tame and docile believe they are a male and female.