Archives of The Cold Blooded News

The Newsletter of the Colorado Herpetological Society

Volume 30, Number 11;   November, 2003

Ridge-Tail Monitor (Varanus acanthurus)
A brief introduction to care and feeding

by Joe Romley, South Coast Reptiles

Heat:
People often believe in the misconception that all captive reptiles need supplemental ultraviolet light in the B spectrum. Many reptiles do need this for proper skeletal growth and overall well being. We provide a small Reptisun 5.0 light for a nicer appearance, but our monitors displayed the same behavior without it. In the wild, monitors spend most of the day under ground or in rock crevices, coming out only to eat and briefly bask. They need to use their resources as best as they can and they know how to do this better than most of us. When given everything they could possibly want and need, they display the best health and do what we believe they are meant to do: eat, grow, procreate, and die. Heat is used to metabolize food (energy). Do they always want to be hot? Do you? No. This is why it is important to provide a basking spot. I emphasize the word spot because so many of us tend to heat the entire enclosure rather than a particular area. The basking spot I provide reaches about 150 degrees F. I use Phillips or GE Brand halogen spotlights that focus a beam of light in an area of about two inches. Under the light are a series of thin wood shelves stacked about two inches apart. This provides a basking gradient reducing in temperature. It also serves as a secure hiding area. A smaller version of this is provided on the other end of the enclosure to allow for security in cooler temperatures and allows for better exposure to humidity. After a good meal monitors will bask for whatever amount of time they feel necessary and at the temperature of their choice. We are able to provide several good choices for them. Our basking lights are left on 24 hours a day. The Reptisun lights are on timers, 16 hours on, 8 hours off.

Food:
Food around here is simple. It mainly consists of large crickets, but is supplemented with fuzzy mice and kingworms (Zophobas morio). Fuzzy mice have more developed bones than pinkies without the hair and biting risk of hoppers. The "Turkey Diet" everyone talks about is a good standby to keep in the freezer in case you run out of insects and mice. It consists of lean ground turkey with bone meal and multi-vitamins mixed in. Crickets are dusted weekly with Miner-All. I feed as much as they will eat. Some days this means dumping 100 crickets in the enclosure, other days 25-30. Although we gut-load our feeder insects, some breeders believe the chitin exoskeleton is more important than gut contents. If given enough heat it is easy almost impossible to over feed Ackies. We feed our insects the same mixture of greens we feed our Bearded Dragons (Pogona vitticeps) with dry bearded dragon pellets added.

Water:
Every living organism requires water. Monitors are tough, but they still need it. They also need to be able to dry out. We provide a clean water bowl on the cool end of the enclosure and keep the substrate (several inches of garden soil) slightly damp. Ackies will bury themselves in the substrate, so remember damp soil can breathe, wet soil can not. The bottom side of the wooden shelves are frequently misted, giving the animals additional humidity while the basking spot provides an area to dry out. Try to avoid using a screen top enclosure as it will be difficult to maintain humidity. You don't want to make monitor jerky with a basking spot and dry air.

Conclusion:
Monitors are not the easiest animals to breed. It was not until I began more closely monitoring the above mentioned conditions that I was graced with eggs. Most monitors can be kept in the same way, with minor adjustments to caging and humidity. Animals from wet mangroves still need to dry out, while desert monitors still need to reach humidity. They all bask, eat, and breed. They all grow and they all die. We don't put ours through a winter brumation as with our colubrids and other lizards. I believe they have the ability to choose when to cycle them.selves. When I asked a well known monitor breeding about cooling them, he told me, "I don't know why people confuse survival behavior with reproductive behavior."