Gould's Monitor
| subspecies: | V. g. gouldii GRAY 1838 V. g. flavirufus MERTENS 1957 |
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V. gouldii flavirufus Alice Springs, NT |
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V. gouldii flavirufus Barkly Tableland, NT |
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V. gouldii flavirufus Freweena, NT |
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V. gouldii gouldii Denham, WA |
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V. gouldii gouldii Mt. Isa, Qld |
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V. gouldii gouldii Barkly Tableland, NT |
Varanus
gouldii with ist subspecies is a member of the subgenera Varanus.
The coloration on the back varies between pale yellow and black, with numerous
small, scattered brighter and darker dots and spots which tends to form
irregular narrow crossbands. Incline the brightly cream-colored for yellow
coloration to the ocelli which occasionally has a dark central spot. The
limbs usually are covered with small white, cream-colored or yellow spots.
A clear black temporal stripe is surrounded by bright scales on both sides.
The tail is unless at the first part pale brown till black. Bright scles
form narrow rings over the tail. The last 7-15 cm of the tail are uniformely
white, cream-colored or yellow. The underside is white, mostly with scattered
dark points and spots. The head scales are small, irregular and smooth.
The nostril is situated at the side, closer to the tip of the snout than
to the eye. 130-220 scale rows are around midbody. The tail is pressed together
very strongly at the side unless at the base. A clearly visible double keel
is on top of the front half. The tail is approximately 1.5 times as long
as SVL. The tail scales are easily keeled. The total length is up to 160
cm.
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V. gouldii gouldii Mt. Isa, Qld |
The
distribution of V. gouldii almost extends over the complete Australian
continent. Only in the outermost southwest where he is represented by V.
rosenbergi in the southeast and on the Cape York Peninsula this species
is missing too (MERTENS 1942b, 1958, 1959, WORRELL 1966, BUSTARD 1968, SWANSON 1976, STORR 1980, STORR et al.
1983, WILSON & KNOWLES 1988,
HOSER 1989, COGGER 1992, EHMANN 1992). This species is also found on some islands off the northern coast.
Aas food everything is taken what can be overpowered by the speciemen (LOSOS
& GREENE 1988). SHINE (1986) reported , that also smalles speciemen from the same species were
taken occasionally. KOCH (1970) also in front of animals
of the same species ) and even in front of scorpions.
A
large enclosure with at least 150 x 80 cm ground area is recommended, if
you want to keep a single pair of V. gouldii. Sometimes you have
to separate the sexes, because especially during feeding they can get very
aggressive. Own experiences have shown, that the animals can be very food
jealous.As ground cover we may use sand. The rest of the furnishing has to be adapted to the nature of the animals. Big rocks, which could not be moved by the monitors and some big tree-trunks or roots are useful. A hiding box, which is filled with damp substrate should be indroduced to the enclosure. Fresh water should always offered to the animals, but the bowl should not be too big, so that the animals can drink, but cannot lay in this bowl. However they seldom find water in the wild, her metabolism is not adapted to this. Fungal skin infections on the extremities and on the tail would be the consequence, which can lead to the loss of the tip of the tail and sometimes also to the loss of the nails and more.
As food we offer V. gouldii a mixture of insects (locusts, cockroaches) and mice. It is necessary to offer always enough sufficient vitamins and minerals.
Till now, the captive husbandry of V. gouldii has not been described outside Australia. RETES (pers. comm.) has bred these animals in the last year repeatedly in the USA, unfortunately no data are published yet. Also KUHN (pers. comm.) has already successfully bred this species several times.
To get some data on breeding these animals, you could have a look to HANINGER-BERLIN (1993). He bred V. panoptes multiple times in the last few years, and V. gouldii is pretty close related to V. panoptes, so you can use these data however.
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