Homosexuality in monitors..

[Dom]

Weird topic I know but I have never really heard any discussion on this matter..

I own a 3 foot 3 inch defenite male savanah monitor and he has been housed with a fellow 2 foot (unsexed) savanah monitor. After comparasons I was about 90% sure he was a male but thought i'd introduce em in case and see what would happen ..

They were totally indiferrent to each other until about 2 weeks after I heard lots of commotion from the cage.. The small male was full blown trying to get his groove on my large male. The large male was getting mad .. lots of puffing and occasional burst of running .. Obviously they were seperated..

Anybody have any simillar experiences .. any thoughts on male interactions.. any oppinions..

What really blows my mind is in the past 3 years.. I've had 3 males introduced to this large male and he has attacked them in the first 30 of introduction..

Anywho .. let me know your thoughts and observations..

[chuck911jeep]

Why can you be sure the first one is a male, is he prooven?

[Jeff_Favelle]

Males mount females, males mount males, females mount males, and females mount other females. Happens ALL the time. It means many many things. I find mine do it to display dominance. But mounting (looks just like copulating) happens several times a day in each of my monitor enclosures. Starts happening around 3-5 months of age from what I can see.

Adult males however, will usually not tolerate each other (depends on the species). Not sure if I'd term it homosexuality though. I mean chasing another monitor away doesn't make them homos.

[Dom]

lol Jeff.. well too be honest it surprised me as I have never seen a female mount a male. So I automatically though it was going to be a male.. but O guess it might not be..

Justin " The other male has been seen copilating with other females.. hemepines fully inverted and inserted.. so yes I know he is a male.. also he is 3 feet inches long and close to 3 years old now.. I doubt a female savanah would get that big, he also has the typical physical aspect of a male..

As for the other one .. I am still uncertain..

In your oppinion Jeff.. is it safe to keep em together or shoudl I keep them seperated?

[mbayless]

yeah what Jeff said...and it is well documented too; they do it for dominance, territory, pecking-order establishment etc...= who is top dog...

Don't worry unless they begin taking chunks out of one another, then separate immediately = I came home 1 afternoon ~1984 to find 1 live V. exanthematicus happy as could be basking, another 1 nearly beheaded and right leg amputed and eaten! and a third nearly beheaded!! So be careful - I still have those two, Ann Boylin and Marie Antoinette in jars, and will write this up soon I think....

Cheers,
markb

[V.hb]

It's dominance. Its not just varanids that do this, many other species do it as well...

[varanuskomodoen]

[SHvar]

Females also have hemiclitori which can be very similar to a hemipene as well as size of the 2. The behavior you speak of is for whos in charge who own the cage food basking spot etc etc. I have a female albig that everts very big hemiclitori, as well tries to kill males (with exception of one so far) on site of them, in her territory on their territory, where ever they are. Monitors can be difficult to sex properly unless youve compared several properly sex males and females of a few species. Easiest way to tell, females start laying eggs around 6 months to a year or so old on when healthy and kept properly. I learned the hard way on a few females and improper substrates. The general body shape of healthy males is thinner than a healthy female.

[Jeff_Favelle]

In your oppinion Jeff.. is it safe to keep em together or shoudl I keep them seperated?

If its indeed 2 males, I would separate them. I would not wait until one takes a chunk out of the other, as that would be too late in my opinion. Perhaps if you got some close-up photos of the vent region. MarkB or SHvar might be able to sex them for you. Can't hurt to try. Although, sexing from photos can be extremely hard even at the best of times.

This is why I always advocates Odatria-type monitors. They are small, and one can easily observe monitor behaviour and heirarchy in a relatively small cage setup. They are the perfect monitors to learn about monitors!

Best of luck! Keep us updated. And, as Shvar said, if your females are going to lay eggs, make sure you got good substrate. Its all about the nest!

[NiagaraReptiles]

Quite often, behaviors similar to what is being described here can be observed between cagemates of either or both sexes of many species (already pointed by several previous posts).

What hasn't been mentioned is thoughts as to <i>why</i> it could be happening. It seems like it has already been pinned to dominance and marked as "normal". In my experience, there is no "normal"........only monitors. First of all, acurately sexing your monitors is important or a lot of what you think you see may not in fact be what is happening.

Let's assume for a minute that the smaller "aggressor" is a female. Would the dominance theory still apply? That is just food for though I felt like throwing in there

I realize we are not in the wild nor are your monitors, Dom, but.......a confrontation such as this in the wild would likely result in one animal backing off and retreating. Does your cage allow one to retreat? They have the option to retreat several hundred yards away in the wild and while it is obvious we can't provide that in captivity, there are ways to arrage an enclosure making it possible for two or more monitors to live together (nearly all the time).

So my question to you, Dom, becomes.......what are your monitors telling you?
Are they saying they are not compatable? Or are they trying to tell you something else?

Again, acurate sexing is very important when trying to answer these questions.........and if I made my point clearly, your head should be flooded with more questions by this point

Enjoy,

[Dom]

tx for all the advise.. really interesting food for though..

JonK.. great post and tx for making me feel like I have no idea wether to keep em together or not.. lol

If its a male .. wich I think they both are.. to me it seems that the new smaller agressor is asserting territory and dominance .. and from the reaction of the larger one .. he is tolleratting it for now .. In my oppinion if these are the sexes .. its an accident waiting to happen .. I may be wrong..

If its a female .. I am doubfounded.. I doubt her to be a female.. but if it is .. then I see it as strick dominance.. and nothing more .. but still did not like the reactions of the larger males.. why would he let himself be overtaken like that when he doubles her size and triples her weight ..


Wich then leads me to think that I probably should not be keeping two monitors of such different sizes together as one is seriously disadvantaged..

mahhh .. dunno what to think now.. Tx

[NiagaraReptiles]

Wonderful! It sounds like you are starting to think for yourself now instead of hoping someone else will answer your question(s) for you Your monitors are right there in your house, they can tell you everything you need to know

If you really want to have some fun, mess with the cage........totally re-arrange it - add things - take away things - whatever.......you might find the tables will turn, and turn, and turn...........................

Are you having fun yet?

[Dom]

lol

Always .. always having fun .. although alwasy confused as well.

Its funny everytime I learn something on monitors, I feel like I know less

[NiagaraReptiles]

You hit the nail right on the head there, Dom!

That is a good sign. Keep it up man. I would love to see more CB varanids in Canada!

[lanceinhispance]

maybe to show dominance.