Cris - I have heard Panoptes (wild encountered) described as the closest thing to land living Salties in aggressiveness and ability to cause damage when confronted...how do they go as a captive...?
Aslan ive incounted a few only about 3 or 4 in my travels so far and they were all about 1m in length and found them all to be placid monitors i may stand corrected mayby someone with abit more experiance can help us out
Aslan, they seem to get used to ppl fairly well and dont seem to want to bite defensively. They do seem to whip a little but i rarely handle them. Wild animals are obviously differant, still i cant imagine them causing any trouble unless you try and catch them or something.
Here's one from the Kimberley... Ordinary photo I know, but it gives you some idea of the prescence of the panoptes up there. They get very big and very imposing. I'm more afraid of handling lace monitors. They have proper claws capable of some serious laceration. Panoptes claws are for digging holes, not holding 6kgs of critter onto a verticle tree.
Cris - I have heard Panoptes (wild encountered) described as the closest thing to land living Salties in aggressiveness and ability to cause damage when confronted...how do they go as a captive...?
Not in my experience, at all. Seen hundreds and played with quite a few and only ever had an issue while catching them. Theyve got a good set of teeth and arent shy about using them. Always fun trying to get them out of wells and mine shafts. I was sitting cross legged in front of the animal in the photos above, at one stage only being 2m from it. Didnt show any defensiveness what so ever.
pugsly someone in sa breeds them,the panoptes,they usually advertise the babies each year on herp trader,a mate of mine knows who the breeder is,ill find out for u if u like,ive seen pics of the adults,the males get alot bigger than the females,awsome looking beasties,great pics guys
Thanks for the info guys - I have no experience with Panoptes and have only heard 'stories' as to their wild nature - good to hear some more accurate accounts...
when i was living in the kimberley i had a resident panoptes that used to walk around the house bold as brass he gave my kelpie a bit of a bite on the nose one day whe she got to close needless to say the dogs used to give him plenty of space from then on .he would dig up the burrowing frogs and would find threm with pin point accuracy he was a monster at about 2m+ and missing about 30cm from his tail. wish i had pics.
on a side note i have noticed they are starting to recover from the initial wave of cane toad invasion around my area as i had not seen any for quite some time, and i have seen a few in the last couple of weeks.
I dont have one at the moment but a family friend breeds them here in adelaide, if u are interested send me a pm i can find out if they have any to sell at the moment