Playing Catch

[formica]

Anyone have a monitor that will catch food in its mouth when its thrown? Last night mine seemed to be trying, took me by surprise, but I'm not 100% sure thats what was going on.

I was feeding a few Morio's, throwing them around the enclosure for him to chase and eat, but last night, after two particularly bad throws which landed right in front of him, when I lifted my arm to throw the third one, my Sav turned to me, mouth wide open, and he tried to grab the Morio as it flew thru the air.

This happened 3 times, unfortunately I'm not very good at throwing Morio's with any accuracy, so he didnt catch any, but I'm tempted to try with something which doesnt wriggle and bite later today

anyone have a monitor that plays Catch? :)

[Pirarucu]

Seen it a bunch. Crocdoc has a video on YouTube of his two lacies grabbing food out of the air.

[smy_749]

I have a tokay that does it

[sharthun]

That's cool!!! :cool:

[Lankyrob]

We had an ackie that would play fetch, he seemd to be rather attached to one particular piece of wood in his viv that was small enough for him to carry around, he would chase it across the viv if thrown and bring it back again.

[infernalis]

Mine have caught thrown food before....

It's a natural thing, Boscs will grab butterflies and moths in the wild. :)

(source: Bennett field study, moth/butterfly parts found in feces.)

[formica]

awsome to hear its quite widely seen! a few days of doing this with my Sav seems to have given him allot more confidence around me, even when he was eating a mouse on my arm he wasnt half as relaxed as he is now - i am sure its more than just catching prey from the air, i think he is preempting me throwing it, because he opens his mouth and looks straight at me, as soon as my arm starts to move, before i throw the food

he hasnt caught one yet tho lol going to try with some pieces of fish later

We had an ackie that would play fetch, he seemd to be rather attached to one particular piece of wood in his viv that was small enough for him to carry around, he would chase it across the viv if thrown and bring it back again.

interesting, did you use any particular technique to train it, or was it spontaneous? given me some ideas anyway!

[Lankyrob]

awsome to hear its quite widely seen! a few days of doing this with my Sav seems to have given him allot more confidence around me, even when he was eating a mouse on my arm he wasnt half as relaxed as he is now - i am sure its more than just catching prey from the air, i think he is preempting me throwing it, because he opens his mouth and looks straight at me, as soon as my arm starts to move, before i throw the food

he hasnt caught one yet tho lol going to try with some pieces of fish later



interesting, did you use any particular technique to train it, or was it spontaneous? given me some ideas anyway!

Totally spontaneous, the only thing we did was ensure the same piece of wood was always put back in after a clean.

[mdfmonitor]

Not sure it's completely natural throwing a dead animal at your pet! :)

Lenny's caught the odd cricket & the odd chick, nothing to put on vid & say look what he can do!

crocdocs the vid to watch!!

Monitor mayhem - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYea2DgmVy4&list=PL0C427EE1A47DFB91)