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julespython

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What is the smallest monitor besides akies. I currently have 2 sand goannas in my 4x2x2 tank but I'm getting rid of them because that is obviously to small for them. Oh and the monitor has to love the whole desert, sand, burrow thing because that is what the tank is like and I wouldn't want to get a forest sort of monitor cos It wouldn't match my hot desert, sandy, ground dwelling theme. I'll get some pics up of the tank as soon as I can.
 
Storrs and Gillens would work. You could easily fit a pair in that sized tank.
 
He's getting rid of his Gouldii as they're too big for his enclosure, why would he get a Spenceri?

Because they're smaller than gouldii and they're awesome. You're right though, sorry, I didn't notice the actual enclosure size before so that wouldn't work either
 
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I have deleted the first part of this as the information was not useful.

Varanus goudii has a recorded max length of 1.65 m and V. spenceri, which has a stockier build, 1.2 m.

Blue

EDIT: From discussion following this post, the gouldii length is exceptional (if correct) and the spenceri length is an under-statement. Snout-vent lengths (SVL) are a better indicator of size for enclosure than the total lengths (TL) quoted here.
 
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Because they're smaller than gouldii and they're awesome.

Someone tell that to this male - 1.5m and massive!

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Bluetongue - I'd be wary of quoting lengths from books. 'Varanus gouldii' as a species used to include what is now called Varanus panoptes. Although we now know they are separate species, some of the older maximum length measurements (and other details) still persist in the literature. Consequently, you'll see a maximum length of 1.6m for Varanus gouldii when that would have been recorded from Varanus panoptes. V. gouldii doesn't get that large. The other thing to consider is that total lengths are misleading when gauging or comparing size. V. spenceri have a stubby tail compared to a V. gouldii, so a 1.2m V. spenceri would be much larger than a 1.2m V. gouldii.

As a bit of an aside (but sort of related to the V. gouldii/V. panoptes story), the Varanus rosenbergi around Sydney were thought to be V. gouldii many years ago, too. Even though they have since been split, every now and then one will still see references in the literature to V. gouldii having an unmarked tail tip 'except for the population around Sydney, which has bands down to the tip of its tail'. That's a V. rosenbergi characteristic.


To the original poster - if you're not a fan of ackies and want a small monitor that will use that space, I'd agree with V. gilleni or V. brevicauda as good choices.
 
because your in victoria,scrub brevies off your list,gillens or storrs would be ok,possably freckled and blackheaded monitors to but they can get bigger than ackies,so cage size u mentioned would be as small as you would want for them,more so blackheads
 
I've always found Victoria's licensing bewildering. People can get crocodiles without issue and there's no experience/minimum age limit for getting lace monitors (which, in my opinion, are far more dangerous captives than most venomous snakes when it comes down to the likelihood of sustaining permanent damage), but brevicauda are verboten. What's with that? They're easily bred in captivity, so it can't be a rarity thing, and they're unbelievably hardy, so it can't have anything to do with difficulty of care. Bizarre.
 
NSW is not much better. I always find it astonishing that you can keep a number if small elapids on a Class 1 that are very difficult to feed and often require force feeding their entire lives; however you can't keep a number of species of lizards that are very easy to care for and breed readily (V.storri and V. brevacauda included).
 
Does it come from the "old" days when these things were rare and the departments just haven't caught up or is there some strange reasoning that we just aren't privvy to?
 
Crocdoc,

If this is in relation to a recent accusation someone posted, forget it. I made the mistake of responding to their first post. It comes about from not being able to satisfactorily justify their initial rudeness and so they sought to belittle me in an attempt to nullify my initial criticisms. Whilst I am far from impressed, the only effective way to end such nonsense was to ignore it.

Please feel free to check the figures I have quoted against any available data.

If you want more accurate data on V. gouldii, northern form to 1.6 m, southern form to1.5 m and desert form (often referred to as the subspecies flavirufus) to 1.4 m. Gould's also vary according to locale within the three regions. The sizes recorded are for Gouldii specimens collected by the WAM.

As for V. panotes panoptes and V. panoptes rubidus, both get 1.6 m (males only, females are markedly smaller).

I am aware of SVL being a better measure on many occasions. I was tempted to give both and then decided, as it was cage size, total length might be more appropriate.

Captive monitors, especially the large species, can exceed their wild maximum length. I have seen some massive captive Lace Monitors that would easily have exceeded the expected wild length maximum of just over 2 m.

Blue
 
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I suspect it's the former Sax, would be interested to know if anyone can confirm this.

Another good example is western and central blue tongues being Class 2 in NSW. The main difference in husbandry between them and the easterns is a lower humidity requirement. But how is that any different to shinglebacks which are Class 1?

Does it come from the "old" days when these things were rare and the departments just haven't caught up or is there some strange reasoning that we just aren't privvy to?
 
Crocdoc,

If this is in relation to a recent accusation someone posted, forget it. I made the mistake of responding to their first post. It comes about from not being able to satisfactorily justify their initial rudeness and so they sought to belittle me in an attempt to nullify my initial criticisms. Whilst I am far from impressed, the only effective way to end such nonsense was to ignore it.
I honestly have no idea what you're talking about, but I'm guessing by your response that this is a touchy topic for you and you're confusing me with someone else.

If you want more accurate data on V. gouldii, northern form to 1.6 m, southern form to1.5 m and desert form (often referred to as the subspecies flavirufus) to 1.4 m. Gould's also vary according to locale within the three regions. The sizes recorded are for Gouldii specimens collected by the WAM.
This hints at what I was talking about. When I first went to the NT 30 years ago, before the split between panoptes and gouldii became widely known, panoptes were referred to as 'northern form' gouldii. Most of the size records have not been corrected and my guess is that this may be the case with the WAM's records.

Does it not seem even a tiny bit odd to you that gouldii and panoptes have the same published length? Having spent time in the field seeing both species, the idea that both panoptes and gouldii have the same length seems odd to me as panoptes is consistently a much, much larger animal. A 1.6m gouldii may occur, but it would be the Robert Wadlow of gouldii. A 1.6m panoptes would be nowhere near as unusual.

I think SVL is a better gauge to use for captivity because a large bulky body will need a lot more space than a relatively thin tail. For example, you wouldn't dare trying to squeeze a 3m Komodo dragon into an enclosure designed for a 3m Varanus salvadorii, as the 3m dragon would weigh 3-4 times as much as the tree crocodile. Coincidentally, a good mate of mine has been consulting with the DPI about enclosure size standards for exhibitors and we had a SVL vs TTL discussion just a few days ago, for he is trying to convince them to base enclosure size standards on SVL rather than TTL.


Captive monitors, especially the large species, can exceed their wild maximum length. I have seen some massive captive Lace Monitors that would easily have exceeded the expected wild length maximum of just over 2 m.
Just out of curiosity, and off topic, you wouldn't have any photos, would you? I've never seen a captive lacie that size and would be interested in seeing photographs. I'm not having a go, I'd just like to see photos of a huge lacie. I've seen a couple of huge wild ones and the odd huge captive but know how rare it is for lace monitors to reach the oft published maximum size for the species. Consequently it's always a delight to see photographs of one that has.
 
ok so here is my tank. im really keen on a brevicauda but how woulld i go about getting one.
also im going to the reptile expo on saturday in melbourne so what should i expect to find there? perhaps find the small monitor im looking for?
 

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.... Just out of curiosity, and off topic, you wouldn't have any photos, would you? I've never seen a captive lacie that size and would be interested in seeing photographs. I'm not having a go, I'd just like to see photos of a huge lacie. I've seen a couple of huge wild ones and the odd huge captive but know how rare it is for lace monitors to reach the oft published maximum size for the species. Consequently it's always a delight to see photographs of one that has.
Crocdoc,
My apologies for being curt. I was tired at the time of posting and still disappointed from recent happenings.

The two WA local books by Brian Bush, Brad Maryan, Robert Brown-Cooper and David Robinson are the "check point" for me, when It come to WA species. All four have spent a huge amount of time in the field. Brian spends half his life out there and works closely with the museum. Brad spent many years working the museum and has also done a huge amount of field work. He is the person who realised O. temporalis was not a brown. I believe these guys have seen enough specimens over time, both in the field and the museum, to know what they are talking about. I know the boys personally and i can assure you that they take their herpetology very seriously.

What would be more useful data to quote, if I had reliable access to it, is the average maximum length. You have only to look at the example of Scrub Pythons to see that. From my own observations, you would be extremely hard pressed to find a goudii that size these days whereas sizeable panoptes are still common.

You were and are correct in saying that SVL is a better measure of the size of an animal. I definitely made a mistake there and I am sorry I did not convey that clearly in my previous reply.

The varius I was referring to were held by Eric Worrell on the site of the original ARP. The animals were also obese from being overfed. I compared the length of one on a log to my own size at the time and it was a good foot longer, which would have put it over 2.1 m. There were four animals in total, all of a similar size, one a Bell's phase. I an sorry I cannot be more helpful than that. Given that it is based purely on visual estimate and memory, I should not have introduced it as an example because it subjective and cannot be verified. So suffice to say, it is not unusual for reptiles in captivity to exceed the maximum size reached in captivity but by no means a given.

That is one impressive Spencer's at 1.5 m. I am not sure how much field data has been collected for the species. As you'd know, it was one of those odd ones known to exist for a long time before somebody bothered to actually describe it. Can you shed any light on that?

Blue
 
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Hey nice enclosure J.P :) . If those rocks aren't secure Id be worried about your new monitors getting squashed if they burrow beneath them . Im also a big believer in using a retes stack under the hot spot.

Any pics available of your sandies mate?
 
No problems, Blue. I had presumed I had walked into the crossfire of another discussion going on elsewhere, so I didn't take it personally.

I'm not familiar with the Bush et al publications. I have no doubt that they have had way more field experience than I have - I guess my question was as to whether or not any of the data used to compile the lengths was from older records, before panoptes and gouldii were split. The reason I had mentioned the gouldii/rosenbergi tail-banding comment is that I've seen that information repeated in books and papers by reputable authors, who were quoting other reputable authors, who were quoting the original reputable author. That original author made a genuine observation that wasn't 'wrong', it just happened to be based on information that was later found to be incorrect, for at the time Sydney rosenbergi were thought to be gouldii.

From my limited experience with the species, a gouldii over 1-1.2m is uncommon, whereas panoptes in that size range (and larger) are the norm. To give you a sense of scale, given the SVL/TTL proportions of these species, a 1.6m gouldii would have a body the size of a large male lace monitor. This panoptes was approaching that size (if it weren't so thin) but I've yet to see a gouldii even half that bulk.
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Regarding my lace monitor question - it was probably a bit loaded. Clearly I have quite an interest in that species, for I keep and breed them at home and spend a lot of time watching wild ones. I know the exact SVL/TTL of my pair at home and have a real sense of their overall size, so it makes it easy for me to gauge the size of wild ones reasonably accurately. What I've found is that lace monitors, captive or wild, truly reaching 2m are extremely rare. A number of keepers have told me that their animals are '2m' long, but I've seen the animals in question and if a tape measure were applied most of them would fall into the 1.7-1.8m size range. I have photographs (on transparency) of the Bells phase lace monitor from ARP and it would have fallen into that category, maybe a bit larger (I can't recall what the others there looked like). Undoubtedly large, but not exceptional. In the years I've been looking at lace monitors, I've seen only four or so wild ones that I would guess to be in the 2m range. Three of those were from the southern reaches of lace monitor range, where they are known to get larger than elsewhere in the country.

This past xmas I was staying with friends down south when a huge lace monitor entered their back yard looking for scraps. I've never seen one larger than this:
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What was unusual about this instance is that the animal was in a back yard and accustomed to humans, so I was able to get someone to run inside and grab a ruler, enabling me to take this shot. A rare opportunity. That's a 30cm ruler. I've measured its SVL and, depending on how much distortion is caused by its head not being flat on the ground and on the same plane as the ruler, it has a SVL in the range of 75-80cm. Using the SVL/TTL of my animals at home for a reference, that would give this animal a total length (had its tail been complete) of 2.1-2.2m.
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A number of people have said "oh yeah, I've seen a lot that size" but most have not been able to provide photographic evidence, so far. With one exception - a person that lives in the same area that this monitor was photographed had shots of another large male that may have been of similar size. There was nothing in the photographs for scale, but its overall proportions suggested that it was pretty big.

My apologies to the O.P. for going off on this tangent - this probably doesn't help you choose a small monitor to put in your enclosure!
 
CrocDoc is very correct. Don't go by measurements in books. I had 2 of the biggest Spencers ever recorded with both over 1.5m. Was it a fluke. I dont think so.. I currently own 2 that are still growing and both are over 1.3m. As for gouldi, my adult breeders would be lucky to be more then 80cm and my flav's 90cms.

There are many(at least 10) species of monitors that are far smaller than acanthurus(spineytails), however most are as rare as hens teeth and are almost impossable to obtain. The best chance is Storrs, Gillens or Brevicauda

CrocDoc. That lacey is huge. The biggest I have ever seen and measured was 6ft 4inches. I never thought I would ever see a bigger one, but it appears I was wrong
 
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only way to get a brevicaudo is to move out of victoria,lol,we arent able to keep them ,hopefully they get with the times and add such species down the track

that lacies a whopper croc doc,love its dark look to
 
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