Monitor pictures-Thread

[longqi]

I honestly have no idea about its breeding or wild caught status
But it is very very tame so I assume it is captive bred

Spongebob
More and more Indo species are being added to that list
Most turtle/terrapins All chondros, Boelins and Komodos of course, Burmese and even a few of the less venomous vens
Hopefully the many varieties of Forest Dragons will get added soon
Great to see and will hopefully slow down the illegal export trade a bit
Its been open season here for far too long and too many wild caught ended up the overseas markets

Virtually any reptile you can name is being bred here now for hobbyists
Over 200,000,000 people so the local market is just exploding
Biggest market is probably geckos of every shape and colour imaginable

Iguanas are not native
But lots of them were imported a long time ago
Plenty of these escaped and there are wild populations throughout Indo
Our big green one was wild caught in a Bali orchard

I must admit Im not really that into lizards being more of a snake person
But if I see any more cool looking ones I'll drop them in here
If I dont put the name its only because I dont know

 

[dihsmaj]

Get a thread for all the forest dragons you get.
They're so beautiful.
The pics you've posted so far look like Gonocephalus sp. (of the forest dragons).
Anyway
That Green Monitor was amazing.

 

[crocdoc]

But it is very very tame so I assume it is captive bred

At $25 I can guarantee it is wild caught. Not many people breed that species in captivity, despite them often being marketed as 'farm bred'.

That aside, temperament in a monitor often has little to do with WC or CB. Varanus prasinus isn't known to be a particularly cranky monitor, anyway.

 

[monitordude]

WOW!! $25!! i would love a prasinus, or keithorni, do you think we will be able too own either??

 

[longqi]

Crocdoc
Most iguanas at the food markets cost between 50,000 and 100,000rupiah That is $5 to $10
Loads of monitors being bred here
On any reptile selling site here they go for between $10 and $50 for something nicely coloured

so $25 for that one is probably a bit much

 

[crocdoc]

1. Iguanas are super easy to breed and lay huge clutches of eggs. Absolutely no comparison to tree monitors. If iguanas are going for $5-10 I'd expect a lot more money for a CB prasinus
2. I didn't say monitors aren't bred in any great numbers, I said that particular species. It isn't commonly bred and lays very small clutches when it is.
3. When breeders do produce monitors, they sell them as hatchlings. That prasinus is well established - either a sub-adult or adult - and I can't see why a breeder would want to hold onto a baby for that long if the selling price was only $25 - they'd have spent more than that on food getting it to that size

If I were a betting man, I'd put money on it being wild caught. 99% of all of the prasinus in the pet trade world wide are WC, so I find it hard to believe that you've found one of the very uncommon exceptions that just happens to be going for $25. Is it being sold in a market?

I should also add that the distribution of wild prasinus includes a part of Indonesia (West Papua), so WC specimens appearing elsewhere in Indonesia is not a huge stretch.

Purely out of curiosity, which monitor species are captive bred there with babies going for $10-50?

 

[spongebob]

I guess some may have skimmed over the link I put in my previous post which clearly dispells the myth of "captive breeding":

http://www.traffic.org/species-reports/traffic_species_reptiles26.pdf

This research (albeit a few years old now) clearly indicated that "captive breeding" facilities in Indonesia are largely a front for laundrying wild caught specimens. V. prasinus is one of the species discussed.

Of course easy to bred species such as green iguanas, corn snakes, bearded dragons etc are becoming popular pets in Indonesia like most of the developing world, but V.prasinus is not of this ilk.

 

[saximus]

That's a bit sad to hear Bob. I guess it's times like that that you can be thankful for how strictly our animals are controlled

 

[crocdoc]

Bingo, spongebob. My point exactly.

 

[SamNabz]

Young ackie

 

[longqi]

Yes Saximus
Be very grateful Aus controls things so well
But the number of local breeders here is big and growing bigger every week
5 years ago there were a few breeders here among the local people breeding for local trade
Now there are literally thousands because keeping reptiles as pets is becoming a huge market here and breeding native reptiles in a perfect climate for breeding is a lot easier than breeding exotic species
The other major factor is that you only need 2 reptiles to start
If you chose 2 nicely coloured retics and the hatchies are good you have initial investment x60
Breeding costs are minimal here because of the weather

Most of the varanids are now being bred here
The traffic report is from several years ago and way out of date
Will ring around and find out who is breeding that species and any others you want to know about
It is for sale by Andry Marayanto who is a very up and coming breeder and one of the few to have cb comb dragons for sale
but I dont know if he bred it or exactly what his programmes are
I do know he has heaps of baby sailfin dragons at $25 too
Nice Corn King and Boas Anacondas and most other exotics etc fetch over $100 each
CB chondros $25-50 depending on colour etc CB retics start at $10 up to far too much for rare one ones
Albino Burmese $100 up
[our two were both 2metres long but sick so cost $40 and $60]
Normal CB burmese $10 up
Jags used to get big money but a rapidly dropping out of the pet market because of the inherent neuro problems that no-one can fix
Very nice Jag morphs used to get $500+
Now they are lucky to get $100 for world class ones

While I completely agree that wild caught were, and still are being used to supplement captive bred for export markets, the growth of top quality breeding projects here is mainly driven by private breeders
[wild caught supplementing breeding for export is one of my pet hates and will remain a problem but CB is slowly this down]
BKSDA the equivalent of parks and wildlife, is also starting to take more action
Export licences are hard to get because the majority of export companies are owned by foreigners and they have tied the market up to exclude native Indonesians for the most part
I dont know too much about lizard programmes
But even extremely difficult species such as Dragon snakes are now being successfully bred in 4 places I know of
[pity they lay so few eggs]

Here is a good example using Chondros
Collections of WC chondros is dropping in most places
The reason is very very simple
Captive bred chondros are cheaper to produce that catching them
There are 5 export licenced Chondro Breeders
As far as I know only 3 were successfully breeding anywhere near the quantities they were exporting
The other 2 are now snapping up privately bred hatchies because it is cheaper to do this that to get Wild Caught from Papua

Exactly the same thing is happening with retics and burmese and most geckos and turtles

The reason every native reptile in Indo is cheap is a simple one
Wages
Average wage here is less than $200 per month
When you compare that to Aus at $4000 per month the reptile prices are similar

I love Aus and it will always be home
But here is far and away the most exciting place on Earth to be as far as reptile industry growth and awareness is concerned

 

[crocdoc]

Nice lengthy response, but it's mostly about every other reptile but the one in question. I have no doubts that people there are breeding the bejesus out of retics, Burms, chondros etc., but that's not what this discussion is about. Varanus prasinus is simply not a reptile that can be mass produced on that sort of scale and the particular specimen you showed is not a hatchling, which is what you'd expect to see a breeder selling. Perhaps you have photographs of the breeder's setup, with eggs in the incubator, hatchlings etc?

By way of comparison, there is a huge herp trade in the USA and it has been ongoing for years. I am in regular touch with a number of mates there and have visited there numerous times, as I also have relatives that live there. All of the reptiles you've mentioned (Chondros, retics, Burms etc) are bred in huge numbers there, too, and the prices are appropriately low. In fact, I'm surprised that an albino Burm would be so expensive in Indonesia given the huge clutch size and ease of breeding. They're much less expensive than that in the USA. Despite all of this, the number of people successfully breeding Varanus prasinus in the USA with any regularlity could be counted on one hand. Wait, make that a finger or two. On top of that, they lay only 2-4 eggs per clutch so the price hasn't dropped at all.

That Traffic report may be outdated, but do I believe in the few years between its publication and now that people have gone from selling WC prasinus as 'farm bred' to breeding so many that all are now CB and the price dropped so low (even taking into account the different values of the dollar, which I already had in my earlier pots)? No.

My money is still on the $25 prasinus being WC.

 

[longqi]

Any Wild Caught lizards at village food markets are about 40,000 or AUD$4 per kilo as they are sold for sate here
So $25 for that one if it is wild caught is expensive
As I said earlier I have no way of knowing about this one

Albino burmese have only hit the market here in larger numbers recently
that is why they are expensive now but with the numbers and quality improving every year that price will drop a lot within 2 years

In USA etc they have problems breeding many animals
That is because the exotics are exotics
Here breeding is done very simply
Most breeders dont incubate and have extremely high success rates %wise
That is because incubators cost money and require reliable power service

At one facility in near Jakarta they breed their varanus in huge enclosed areas
Each section has hollow logs and a few trees with bird mesh over the top
They simply toss the adults in and feed them and collect the young later and do exactly the same with turtle terrapins and tortoises
Chameleons Iguanas and geckos are more colour specific so they just use smaller enclosures
But once again these are outside enclosures that mimic natural conditions except for the absence of predators
Surabaya and Solo have very similar set ups

12 of my breeding chondros live in one smallish tree with nesting boxes and a sprinkler system set up for dry season
Well fed and zero problems so far with 87% hatching rate and very very few hatchies needing force feeding
Its only a few special ones that I am selectively breeding that are separated or inside

Ive sent Andry a text but he hasnt answered yet
I have also asked my GF to ask which breeders are producing which species of lizard this year on the biggest reptile site in Indo
Hopefully that might answer a few questions that I have zero knowledge about

I apologise for interrupting the thread
Ill let you get back to your photos again

Just one quick addition before I leave you in peace again
GF asked about Monitor breeding

These are the replies after 2 hours

• -Becarii [babies and yearlings]
  -Salvator
  -B. Solid Salvator
  -Melinus [babies and yearlings]
  -Indicus
  -Nebulosus [babies and yearlings]
  -Cerambonesis (Babies avail now])
  -Similis [babies and yearlings]
  -Rudicolis (Babies)
  -Doreanus (Adult)
  
  -V Gileni
  -V Cumingi (babies)(yg
  -V Yuwonoi (ORDER babies now)
  -V Togianus (ORDER babies now)
  -V Glauerti
  -V Achanturus
  -V Flavescen (BABIES COOMING SOON)
  -V Risingeri

[FONT=&quot]lokal:
melinus,argus,doreanus jayapura,salvadori...last n least KOMODO dragon
improt
savannah,abigularis,nile monitor bw tegu[/FONT]

salvat
savan
rudi
indi
pras
simil
jobo
meli
nebu
gould

[FONT=&quot]1.reingsengeri(babies)
2.prasinus(babies and adults)
3.macrae
4.melinus
5.yuwonoi(abies)
6.cerambonensis
7.gouldie(babies)
8.rudicolis[/FONT]

monitor breeding :
varanus albigularis
varanus salvadori
varanus rudicollis
varanus exanthematicus
varanus komodonensis
varanus nebolosus
varanus indicus
varanus dumerilii
varanus gouldi

Only 2 have mentioned the Prasinus
Suprising one is that 2 have legal komodos breeding
Lots of the breeders work together so they may have included monitors they havent actually bred themselves but friends have

 

[crocdoc]

Hmm... I wouldn't be comparing prices of WC lizards at a food market being sold for sate with WC lizards for the reptile specialty pet trade, especially ones that have to brought from other provinces/islands.

The conditions you described for breeding monitors outside and just leaving them be to fend for themselves wouldn't work particularly well with tree monitors like prasinus, especially without incubating the eggs in an incubator.

That still leaves the question about why the breeder would be selling an adult instead of babies.

I do have one question, though. With all of those monitors listed as being 'bred', do you think the answer would have been different if you'd asked the very same question a few years ago when that Traffic report was done? I can't imagine people then would have said "oh, we take these out of the wild and then export them as CB, illegally". They would have said "these are the species we are breeding" and would have provided an identical list. I would guess that at least half or more the animals on that list are still being WC. The appearance of babies on the list isn't indicative of anything, either, as a common practice is to wild collect gravid females and then incubate any eggs they drop. That's the source of most of the baby monitors that appear on USA price lists.

 

[longqi]

A few years ago I would have agreed with you 100% and I have been involved in fighting wild collecting here for several years
But when I see these places it just blows me away and I have confidence that some of those farms are producing their own hatchies
as I have seen their colour morph breeding projects and you cant get those from the wild
The huge increase in breeders for local buyers is awesome as is reptile awareness/conservation
The same local buyers could buy cheaper from food markets but buy from these guys so that might suggest even the locals approve??
I know nothing about breeding monitors except what Ive seen at these places and I was not paying a great deal of attention to the lizards as my object was snakes
Those replies were from hobbyists not from export farms

I frequently sell adult snakes if I have better youngsters coming through to breeding age
I would think other breeders do similar things??

Incubators are seldom used here simply because power supplies in rural areas are unreliable at best
Even in Bali we get 220V power
It fluctuates between 175V and 227V on an hourly basis and is often off for the day especially in wet season
Most incubators spit the dummy under those conditions and most hobbyists dont have gensets

 

[crocdoc]

I know a fair bit about breeding monitors and can say with confidence that breeding snakes such as pythons is quite different. I presume that's what you meant by colour morphs. I am not doubting that the pythons and other snakes are being captive bred, but monitors are a lot more labour intensive to breed. Not necessarily difficult, once everything is dialed in properly, but they require a fair bit of attention to make sure things go smoothly. For example, females are choosy about nest sites. Some of those monitors may well be bred in outdoor enclosures, but my money is still on most of those animals being WC (including that prasinus). I suspect you're not going to get an honest answer by asking around, regardless, unless someone shows you some proof (such as photos of hatchlings with their heads popping out of the eggs).

As for the incubator, I wasn't questioning the decision of people there to not use incubators but simply saying that tree monitor eggs are less likely to fare well without one.

 

[XKiller]

my V.Indicus.

Shane

 

[Robo1]

Wow, nice photo. How old is it?

 

[BurtonReptiles]

hey i was just wondering when they grow up are they easy and good to handle?

 

[XKiller]

Just over 2 years old.

Wow, nice photo. How old is it?