The last dragon Special - Fruit eating Monitor

[Will0W783]

Daniel, have you and your colleagues looked at the digestive enzymes of the lizard? I'm curious as to how much it's stomach pH and/or enzyme cocktails have evolved to deal with a fruit diet instead of meat.

[bodiddleyitis]

No I only touched them about 20 times in 11 years. I left their insides alone. Walter Auffenberg looked at the gut morphology; it's got a bit of a caecum and its tough enough to pass big seeds. I think the brains would be much more interesting than the stomachs!

[infernalis]

The show is scheduled to rerun on Animal Planet Tuesday morning 12 February 2013.

Don't miss it!

Daniel Bennett - IMDb

[Rakoladycz]

Daniel, I haven't watch the Wild Kingdom episode in full but have it set to record. What is the fruit they eat similar too? Also I remember you speaking with Ben Aller about a pulp diet or something similar? Would you be willing to go into further detail about the diet? I have no desire to keep them nor do I think the average keeper should but have a general interest.

[Pirarucu]

I'm curious Daniel, in your opinion what would a suitable diet in captivity be? Obviously keeping them on a purely natural diet with things such as Pandanus would be impractical at best, if not impossible to provide, even in the case of a conservation project to breed them in captivity. What more common fruits would they do well on, if you had to guess?

[infernalis]

Related thread.....

http://www.ssnakess.com/forums/varan...s-found-3.html

[bodiddleyitis]

Originally Posted by Pirarucu

I'm curious Daniel, in your opinion what would a suitable diet in captivity be? Obviously keeping them on a purely natural diet with things such as Pandanus would be impractical at best, if not impossible to provide, even in the case of a conservation project to breed them in captivity. What more common fruits would they do well on, if you had to guess?

Much of the confusion arises over anthropomorphic ideas of fruit. We tend to think of them as soft, sugary things like grapes and bananas. The primary food of all frugivorous monitors is Pandanus; rock hard, fibrous, waxy keys. There isn't anything remotely similar in the human diet. Canarium spp. are also common in the diet of olivaeus and bitatawa; they are a little bit like olives but much harder, and often have calcium oxalate crystals on the outside - excruciatingly painful if it gets in your mouth. The sugary fruits that are eaten by olivaceus are restricted to Microcos and a few balete fruits. They are not common dietary items which is not surprising - monitor lizards have not evolved to survive on sugars, they require protein and fats, and whereas most species get their fats from the animals they eat, frugivorous monitors get them from fruit. The metabolic processes that allow them to process waxes and plant oils into energy and lizard meat are very different from the "normal" pathways that most monitor lizards use to process animal prey.
This, unfortunately, is lost on many people who only know monitor lizards from boxes. They see butaan gobbling down chicks and rodents, and that convinces them that they must be the same as all other monitor lizards; generalist predators that will eat anything they come across. If this were true then it would be very hard to explain the presence of more than one species of Varanus in any place, carnivorous or not. There are generalist monitor lizards on all continents, often sympatric with species that have a more specialised lifestyle. It surprises me that they all act the same in boxes as much as it would surprise the owners of the boxes if they took the trouble to take a look at how the animals behave in the wild.

[Pirarucu]

Originally Posted by bodiddleyitis

Much of the confusion arises over anthropomorphic ideas of fruit. We tend to think of them as soft, sugary things like grapes and bananas. The primary food of all frugivorous monitors is Pandanus; rock hard, fibrous, waxy keys. There isn't anything remotely similar in the human diet. Canarium spp. are also common in the diet of olivaeus and bitatawa; they are a little bit like olives but much harder, and often have calcium oxalate crystals on the outside - excruciatingly painful if it gets in your mouth. The sugary fruits that are eaten by olivaceus are restricted to Microcos and a few balete fruits. They are not common dietary items which is not surprising - monitor lizards have not evolved to survive on sugars, they require protein and fats, and whereas most species get their fats from the animals they eat, frugivorous monitors get them from fruit. The metabolic processes that allow them to process waxes and plant oils into energy and lizard meat are very different from the "normal" pathways that most monitor lizards use to process animal prey.
This, unfortunately, is lost on many people who only know monitor lizards from boxes. They see butaan gobbling down chicks and rodents, and that convinces them that they must be the same as all other monitor lizards; generalist predators that will eat anything they come across. If this were true then it would be very hard to explain the presence of more than one species of Varanus in any place, carnivorous or not. There are generalist monitor lizards on all continents, often sympatric with species that have a more specialised lifestyle. It surprises me that they all act the same in boxes as much as it would surprise the owners of the boxes if they took the trouble to take a look at how the animals behave in the wild.

So in short their diet should be one of these harder fruits rather than the sweet things that humans eat? I know the videos you're talking about... Wonder who exactly came up with that one. Next we'll be feeding Savannah Monitors fruit instead of mice and bugs...

[infernalis]

The videos are most likely illegally exported specimens, or possibly AZA registered specimens.

I just got done watching the entire episode of Wild Kingdom, and there is only one place that has successfully bred these animals.

From the literature I have read, other attempts to produce offspring have failed.

[infernalis]

I am very angry right now, My DVD recorder glitched the disc rendering it unreadable.

[Rakoladycz]

Wayne I was curious how true his breeding attempts really were. I wondered if they didn't just bring in gravid females. Been at work and will have to get to the dvr later.

[varanus_mad]

Originally Posted by infernalis

The videos are most likely illegally exported specimens, or possibly AZA registered specimens.

I just got done watching the entire episode of Wild Kingdom, and there is only one place that has successfully bred these animals.

From the literature I have read, other attempts to produce offspring have failed.

Wayne when you say bred how succesfully are we talking more than one clutch?

was there repeated success in this area.

[infernalis]

Originally Posted by varanus_mad

Wayne when you say bred how succesfully are we talking more than one clutch?

was there repeated success in this area.

Within the Television special, the man who succeeded in producing one single offspring was hoping for more, The documentary aired in 2007.

So in all honesty, Daniel would be the best person to ask.

[bodiddleyitis]

Originally Posted by varanus_mad

Wayne when you say bred how succesfully are we talking more than one clutch?

was there repeated success in this area.

Avilon Zoo got one hatchling. The account of breeding V. olivaceus by Lutz is fabricated.

[Rakoladycz]

Originally Posted by bodiddleyitis

Avilon Zoo got one hatchling. The account of breeding V. olivaceus by Lutz is fabricated.

I suspected that! :/