We initially housed them together as the female was
larger than the male. He tried to be aggressive towards
her, but she was bigger and could hold her own ground.
They seemed to be getting on okay, but one day we
noticed blood in the enclosure and following a panicked
search finally identified that the female was unscathed but
the male had blood coming from one of his hemipenes. He
Following this setback, we made a number of changes to
the enclosure including heating the main laying area, new
lighting and replacing the water tub with a larger pond.
These proved to be successful. Since then, the pair has
produced many offspring and still continue to do so. We
now maintain this breeding pair and a separate trio which
appear to get on reasonably well together; although they
are yet to breed we have recently
observed them mating.
‘Their teeth are capable of causing serious
injury, and their razor sharp claws can
inadvertently inflict painful scratches.’
seemed to have sustained the injury whilst trying to mate
the female. We took this to be a good sign that the male
was a sex fiend, willing to go to unusual lengths - even to
self-harm - to mate with the female! After separating them
for a month to allow the male to heal, they were
reintroduced. Mating was observed almost immediately
and we got our first batch of eggs several weeks later.
Unfortunately, the female didn’t like the laying spots on
offer (even though these had been previously found to be
acceptable by our Mertens’ Water Monitors) and laid her
eggs around the cage, including some in the water. The
male ate a few of them (expensive omelettes!), and the
remainder spoiled after a few days in the incubator. Close,
but something was still amiss.
We continue to make adjustments to
the enclosures and to husbandry
methods. Undoubtedly, these will be
refined as our knowledge and under-
standing of these monitors improves.
Temperament.
Mangrove Monitors are large, robust and agile and are not
for the inexperienced keeper. The males are much larger
than the females and generally have an aggressive
temperament. In captivity, they appear to have no fear of
humans and are very food motivated - prone to biting
rather than tail whipping. Some males have a milder
temperament and seem to tolerate handling better, but care
is always required as they are armed with sharp teeth and
are capable of causing serious injury with just a nip. Their
claws are also razor sharp and can inadvertently inflict
long, painful scratches, so best to not have bare arms or
legs whilst handling.