Tough call for Bengals

[JeffG]

Hi Guys,

Today i made a really really tough call, i traded my burmese females for a pair of Bangal monitors. My burms were close to my heart but i have decided to focus on my monitors exclusively. I still have my male albino but he will stay with me as a pet, my breeding efforts are now focused on monitors only.

The Bengals are truly stunning creatures and i look forward to working with them, they are very inquisitive monitors and don't go straight into hiding. I got the only two left at reptilians an am holding thumbs for a pair, im am almost certain i have a pair but my luck ewith aquiring females is shocking. According to an article by W. Auffenburg who studied them in the wild and captivity for about 20 years males have scale clusters at the base of the tail, a feature lacking in females. I will let the pictures speak for themselves, you can clearly see the the clusters in the suspected male and lack thereof in the female, also the male is smaller so it shows the prominance of this feature.

Suspected male,


Suspected female,


Two nice pictures of them,



Thanks,
Jeff

[Wolf777]

Very pretty monitors, hope they are a pair.

[Buck Rogers]

Jeff, I know when we spoke about these 2 weeks back and I myself on a thread said it was a bad idea for pet shops to sell this species, but I have never been happier to see these. They have gone to in my opinion the most dedicated and knowlagable monitor keeper in the country. I am just so happy they didn't end up in some rich kids collection to slowly whither away and die with no future prospects about mating.

Really hope they a pair, I wanna come check them out sometime!

[JeffG]

Hi Buck,

Thanks for you compliments, they are truly amazing and i had to give it a shot. Next time you come over you can watch them massacre some crickets, the suspected female turned into the tazmanian devil when i threw crickets in their cage, she is even eating off tongs already. At the rate they are eating, considering i only got them today they should be huge in no time LOL.

The suspected male is abit more shy and is eating a little but then again they still need to settle in. They are lovely monitors and i am hoping so badly for a pair. I will keep you guys updated as they grow. I hope the rest of them made there ways into homes that will try and breed this species and not treat them like beardies.

Thanks,
Jeff

[herpitologica]

Very pretty monitors,how big do they get??

[Buck Rogers]

BIG!!!! Lol... average out at 100cm but I think that's just the body length, Jeff will have to correct me.

[Copperbob]

Those are very cool! They look like dinosaurs.

[JeffG]

Hi Guys,

Buck they do get big but not that big lol. Males in the wild average out at 150cm and females average out at 120cm total length, a noticeable size difference if you ask me. In captivity they obviously have the potential to attain greater sizes but i would say to much bigger. Size also depends on locality with the Sri Lankan locale averaging out at about 160cm at the top end of the scale, there was a report of a wild Varanus Bengalensis from Sri Lanka of 2.4m but i find this unlikely. The smaller locales average out at 100-120cm with the overall average for the species being 150cm as stated (male ofcourse). They may not sound that big but fatty is only 102cm and he is a real beast of an animal, a male Bengal monitor could be one and a half times his size plus have some serious speed. The tail counts for a large proportion of the total length and being whipped by an adult can't be much fun with a tail that looks and feels like a leather whip.

Today they are abit more shy and prefer me out the reptile room today, but i can understand this as they have to settle in still. I will keep you guys posted as they grow.

Thanks,
Jeff

[Bushviper]

They are more active than most other monitors you are probably used to working with. They feed primarily on insects and small invertebrates. They love chasing food and this is what makes them so interesting. They will run after silly things like meal worm beetles just to scoop them up even though they have so little nutritional value the lizards seem to enjoy the run around.

They dont like close interaction with humans but will come very close. I have seen these do the best in a room with a wall of a metre high built down the middle. As long as it is smooth they will not climb over it. The centre is raised with decent climbing branches and a pond under the tree. They have a proper halogen light in the one corner and were an entertainment centre by themselves. We sat here for quite a while (at least two beers) just tossing in super worms, mealworm beetles and locusts.

I hope you have lots of success with them considering they are classified as very endangered in the wild.

[top dog]

Great looking little guys, had a eye on them too, just to little space at the moment.
Good luck with them being a pair, would love to see locally captive bread monitors on the market.

[christophermchale]

sorry to bring up an old thread, but how much do bengals typically sell for in south africa?

[SacredSerpents]

Any bengals still around in SA?