r/MonitorLizards

I have a 6 month old Cumingi water monitor, and I noticed today that after feeding a large meal it made a sort of gurgling sound every once in a while and it has yawned twice after feeding that I’ve noticed. It seems to be breathing normally and is very active and food motivated. Humidity is around 65% ambient temp around 85° with basking spots about 125°, large water dish for swimming. Am I overthinking or should I schedule a vet appointment?

This brand of light keeps going out. I don’t know if it’s because I’m going to Walmart and getting it, but could someone please tell me an alternative

Love getting the opportunity to share our passion, especially when invited to speak at a local reptile society. Even here in Australia, it’s not every day people get hands-on experience working with monitor lizards, so it made for a really enjoyable and rewarding evening for both us at Life With Dragons and the members of the local reptile society!

And getting the opportunity to do an event with my lovely wife helping out on the evening was even better!

Got this little fella a couple weeks ago and have been trying to interact and “tame” him down and for some reason he’s learned that hands= biting. I can pick him up but as soon as I put my hand or finger near his face, he will lung and bite down on my skin. He also decided that my ears were scary and left me with a bleeding earlobe /:

If anyone has any tips with this species or has dealt with bitey monitor lizards before, I want to know how you deal with this, before they get big enough to do any serious damage. I don’t think it’s a food response I think somewhere along the lines, before I owned him, someone probably tried to grab him and he learned that by biting their hands, the scary human went away.

Hi! I’m a veterinary student placed at a small zoo for a clinical rotation. One species I am observing and caring for is an adult savannah monitor lizard named Chonk (for obvious reasons, and yes he’s on a diet). For background info, before being taken in by the zoo, he was in a very neglectful situation and, as a result, has a variety of health issues. His sheds are frequently not very pretty and his skin has been rough for quite some time.

Concern: I’m concerned about these various small scaleless areas that appear raw, but not bloody, and seem uncomfortable to the touch for him. His skin is dry and cracked in areas where the scales do remain. I know with my snakes and beardie, if they presented the way Chonk is right now, it would absolutely not be normal, however, I’m unfamiliar with what “normal” is in savvy’s. Hoping yall can teach me! See the pictures attached and more helpful info below.

Husbandry: He’s in an enclosure that’s around 6ft x 6ft. The substrate is some type of mulch that’s spot cleaned twice daily, fully cleaned every 2 weeks, and lightly misted once daily to help keep humidity around 50%. Each time I dig through his substrate, it’s never overly damp or wet. He has a UVB bulb and a basking bulb that creates a basking spot that reaches roughly 100°F or a little higher. Ambient/cool side temps are about 80°F. He eats a variety of superworms, hornworms, dubia roaches, pinky mice/rats, eggs, and probably some other insects I’m forgetting. Food has a rotation of calcium with and without D3 + multivitamins. Water is cleaned and switched out twice daily.

Cross contamination & biosecurity: While he’s in a room with multiple other reptile species, they do not have contact with each other. However, biosecurity isn’t the best and I’m working on improving protocols while here, so there is absolutely the possibility of cross contamination happening between animals. Currently, I haven’t noticed other animals with any issues.

Hoping to crowdsource in addition to discussing this with vets I work with, so any helpful information, knowledge, insight, resources, etc. you can share with me would be so appreciated! Thanks!

Far from new to diy, but was hoping to get some inspiration from people with adult Savannah Monitor enclosures. I have a decent sized space to work with in my basement 12'x4' is what I'm working with as an enclosure and about 30x that for roaming when I let him out. Working on building tops to my fish tanks already to keep him out in hopes of future proofing while I'm at it 😂 he stares at my axolotls and I'm hoping it's admiration lol. He has definitely become our cats emotional support animal.

This is Uzui, a Sorong blue tail monitor. He's surprisingly personable, very active, and loves exploring. He also has an amazing food drive.

Neuvi my rescue Savannah monitor keeps growing, and so is her appetite. When I first researched Savannah monitors after getting her I learnt a big part of their natural diet is giant snails! I live in Canada so escargot is a bit difficult to come, by and I’m worried about added spices or butter. My local petstore sells a can o snails for about 12$ca each and I’d assume one can will last me maybe 2 weeks. (I am a uni student who works minimum wage so yes that’s a bit out of budget). I don’t want to go out and catch my own snails because I’m horrified of what they might carry or have on them that can be bad for Neuvi. Are there any other places I can get snails with no extra stuff for a more reasonable price? Would I be better off forgetting snails and sticking to other bugs? I want whatever is best for her.

If anyone here has a lot of room and experience with asian water monitors there’s what appears to be an adult black dragon monitor for adoption

https://linktr.ee/reptilesavior

The rescue’s somewhere in southern California

“Mommy! I want cuddles!”

*provides cuddles*

“Activate SUPER FUN HAPPY SLIDE”

What an odd creature

I got the fecal results back from the vet and my celebensis water monitor has something called giardia and looking into this they are similar to coccida which scared me because I lost a black roughneck to coccida last year. I asked the vet but they haven’t responded yet if it would be better to just leave it alone and not medicate considering they are growing and eating still. my reason asking this is because I would need to remove her from her cage into a quarantine tank, and clean her tank everyday with ammonia which from experience can take an hour, liquid feed her and medicate all involving high stress to the monitor, just wanting opinions or advice thanks

Asmodeus is 8 months old now! And he’s come a long way temperament wise. He is my bestest boy and he is a goober🥰