Captive Husbandry and Breeding of the
Mangrove Monitor
( Varanus indicus ).
Chris and James Haberfield have long maintained an extensive reptile collection and have
always been up for a challenge. This extensive article covers in great detail every aspect of keeping
a species high on many herpers’ wish lists.
T
he Mangrove Monitor (Varanus indicus) is
arguably one of the most striking of the large
monitors and an incredible species to keep.
Although adults are difficult to handle and require
relatively large, solid enclosures, they can be very
rewarding for experienced keepers. Our aim in this article
is to provide you with some helpful insights, so that
hopefully you don’t make the same mistakes
and experience the same frustrations that we
have.
A ten-year project.
Although we have been keeping Mangrove
Monitors for more than 15 years, it took
almost 10 years before we were able to
successfully and regularly breed them.
This was due in part to the inability to find a
suitable breeding pair.
Our first purchase was an adult trio from
Queensland which had been legally wild
caught many years before. Two of the
monitors were substantially larger than the
third, and were sold to us as males, while the
third was said to be a suspected female. We
Right: yearling Mangrove Monitor.
All images by Chris & James Haberfield,
unless otherwise noted.
Top right: adult female; note blood on
mouth. Image by Neil Elgar.
kept one male separate and the ‘pair’ together in what we
thought was a reasonable-sized enclosure (about 2.4m x
1.7m x 1.8m high) in which we had previously bred
Mertens’ Water Monitors, and that contained a large
plastic tub as a source of water. We occasionally observed
what to our inexperienced eyes appeared to be pre-mating
behaviour, but with no breeding success. Eventually all