Im new here

[thedesignworld]

Hey im a newbie here. Seems to be a great community! I am a web designer from Ontario Canada, but I have a lot of interest in "monitor lizards". So I went out and bought a Red Tegu Monitor Lizard. Apparently this is a bad choice for most new reptile owners but hey, I sit on my computer chair all day and my lizard which is called "Litoris" is right beside me :D. Below are some pictures of my lizard and my lizards habitat, I hope you enjoy viewing them:

http://www.thedesignworld.com/ryan/litorismylickingclitorisliz.jpg

http://www.thedesignworld.com/ryan/2005_0331march3120050021.jpg

http://www.thedesignworld.com/ryan/2005_0331march3120050022.jpg

http://www.thedesignworld.com/ryan/newpad.jpg

http://www.thedesignworld.com/ryan/newpad1.jpg

http://www.thedesignworld.com/ryan/newpad2.jpg

http://www.thedesignworld.com/ryan/newpad3.jpg

I am sorry if this takes a while to load for the 56kers out there :rolleyes:

Enjoy looking at my Red Tegu Monitor Lizard named "Litoris"....

[damzookeeper]

Hi and welcome. I don't know much about Tegus. I'm a dragon/gecko/snake person myself. ;) But welcome!

[boywithscales]

well welcome, first tegus are not monitor lizards so you know, ther a large species of south american lizard called TEIIDS(i hope i spelled that right.) second there is a difference in care for monitors and tegus. The red tegu is known to have trouble sheding, so be prepared. keep your temps up and if you have a screen top, get rid of it (there garbage) youll end drying out your tegu. welcome to the site and goodluck with the tegu :)

[peterm15]

very nice steup.. i also know nothing about them but i do know with enough reasearch any herp can live happily and healthy in a beginers care..

also if the screen top is a problem as boywithscales says i would suggest looking into a custom enclosure made by yourself or someone else out of wood... its probably your best bet.. or you can hit up some garage sales and see of you can find a suitable dresser ( or something of that sort) that you can customise with sliding glass doors and vents and stuff.. this in my opinion is the easiest and cheapest way to get a great looking enclosure for cheap...

[thedesignworld]

I am curious, would I be able to have other types of lizards in the same terrium as my red tegu?

[damzookeeper]

mixing species is very badly frawned apon with good reason. There are more cons than pros to adding more than one species in a set up.
Just a few...
*they may get stressed from having the other species so close by and not being able to escape that "territory" like they would in the wild.
*This is hard to explain, I hope I make it clear and if not maybe someone else can help out.... but some lizards carry different amounts of parasites or bacterias that do not affect them in any way but if a different species is introduced to that same enclosure these lizards may contract these parasites or bacterias and become deathly ill or worse. For example if you were to house a bearded dragon with a uromastyx. The uro may end up with a really bad case of coccidia as this is found in bearded dragons fecus and they do not have any side effect from it unless it is very high were as the uro would pick up this parasite and become really ill and need meds and quarenteen. Besides the fact that uros need a basking of about 120 and beardies about 105-110.
*As stated above, the two species may have similar but not exact housbandry set ups and this could cause problems.
*One species may be more dominant than the other eating all the food, taking all the good hiding and basking spots, and bullying the other species, possibly hurting or killing them.

Just to name a few. I'm sure others will add more. but I'm off to the gym now so have to flee. ;)

[thedesignworld]

thanks for the heads up, how about having another red tegu in there? a smaller one? would that be fine?