Savannah Monitor | Most Misunderstood Lizard

Authored by Todd Cornwell Unique Birthday Party Parties for Kids & Reptile Rescue

Guest Editor Wayne Harvey assisted with this piece.

“The Savannah Monitor can make a great pet, so tame and easy-going”
I hear this statement all over, in pet stores, on Facebook, and I cringe every time I hear it.

Courtesy of Lee Chris

The Savannah monitor is native to Africa, where they live in burrows 2-4 feet underground. They spend the heat of the day, and most of the night within these burrows. While the African Savannah can be hot, it is not the desert. Too many people keep them incorrectly, and while monitors are hardy creatures, and will live for years without proper care, we always want what’s best for our pets, right? The symptoms of terminal gout can take years to manifest (be shown) and by that time, full renal failure has set in. (Their kidneys fail) For an in-depth explanation please visit this link Monitor lizard gout

Savannah Monitor Enclosure | Right & Wrong

A typical Savannah Monitor cage I see as a rescue consists of a 40-60 gallon glass tank, with sand, a water dish, and a branch. And while this might work for a Bearded Dragon, this setup is slowly killing the monitor. Being underground the humidity in the air they breathe is 70-80%, by keeping them in a “Typical” set-up, they are slowly dehydrating from the inside out. We think of dehydration as not drinking, or they need a bath. Drinking or bathing does little for them internally, as every breath they take, a little of their reserves goes with them, and it doesn’t matter how much they drink, eventually they will run out of reserves. Think of it like this, when you see your own breath in the winter, that is some of your own moisture leaving your body as you exhale, same concept.

A good Savannah Monitor enclosure, will be a minimum of 8 feet long, 4 feet wide, and 4 feet tall, with 18-24 inches of substrate (dirt/sand mixture), with UVB lighting, an ambient temperature of 85, with a basking spot at 115-125. A great Savannah Monitor cage, will be 8 foot long, 4 foot wide, and 6-8 feet tall, with 2-3 feet of substrate! Have an ambient temperature of 85, with a basking spot of 135-160 degrees. This way they can burrow deep, have plenty of room to roam, and forage. This is a huge deal breaker for your average person, who just paid $40 off Craigslist to some guy who bred it at home.

Courtesy of Wayne Harvey

Feeding

Another issue, which has been discussed many times, is feeding. In the wild, they are specialist feeders, they eat bugs, (spiders, scorpions, crickets, roaches, and invertebrates), mollusks (slugs and snails) and worms. As you can see, this is not really a broad variety, in captivity, once they reach a decent size, most typical keepers feed them rats/mice, and that’s it. Soon, in a small space, without being able to roam to forage, and without proper temperatures to support proper metabolism, eating high fat rats, they get overweight & lethargic! Imagine eating McDonald’s Quarter pounders, every meal, 7 days a week, soon you weigh in at 400 lbs, and you really don’t want to move off the couch, and we call it tame & easy-going!

Savannah Monitor Diet

Courtesy of Wayne Harvey

A superior diet consist of a variety of foods, most are readily available between your local pet store, and your local grocery store. Dusted crickets & roaches, rodents and chicks, uncooked/unpeeled shrimp, whole fish (tilapia is readily available, I get 2 whole fish (in a 2 lb package) for $4 at Winco, I thaw them enough to cut them into bite size chunks, and freeze them in meal sized baggies. When I want to, I pull out 1 bag at a time, and I feed them a variety weekly (a little of everything listed). I do not overfeed them, most monitors will eat until they practically burst at every meal. Just because you “can” eat a whole large pizza, doesn’t mean you should, same for them. In the wild, they might eat today, and then not find anything substantial for a week, so they stuff themselves when given the opportunity. During the first year of life, it is recommended to feed daily, as this is critical for proper growth and development. Growth can be as rapid as a full inch or more per week!
Lighting/heat is also very important to them. A lot of pet stores (who know dogs/cats, but really don’t have much of a clue on reptiles), will tell you they don’t need UVB lighting. While they can live years without it, it is better for them, and you will have a healthier pet with access to UVB. (Access to ultraviolet light has shown to improve immunities in laboratory studies)

Heating and Lighting

Now the basking spot, this is an area many people misunderstand.

“It never gets to 150 degrees Fahrenheit in Africa, what are you talking about?”

That may be, however, they have measured the temperatures on the rock platforms where lizards bask at temperatures 175 degrees! Folks often confuse radiant absorption with air temperatures. All one has to do is touch the hood of a dark car parked in the sun to understand. This is not a 24 hour a day has to be this temperature deal, what this means is, the peak time of the day, the basking spot reaches 135-150 degrees for at least a couple of hours. Your monitor will regulate his temps, what he needs to digest the food properly, but it’s our job to supply him with options. Another misconception is that the basking spot needs to be from 1 bulb. The basking spot should be about as long as his body is between his front and back legs. So depending on the size of the monitor, the ideal basking spot should have 2-4 bulbs, I like to alternate the heat and UVB bulbs in a row above the basking spot. So when they are basking up the heat, they are basking up the uvb rays as well. For further details please read Explaining Ectothermy by Christina Miller

Now all of this will affect your monitors attitude, monitors kept properly, are not lazy, don’t sit still, and are not “Tame as Kittens”, a typical monitor is feisty, defensive, and generally not affectionate in the least. But they are fascinating creatures, which will provide years of “entertainment”, and are totally cool to watch as they roam the Savannah right in your living room. (while safely inside their enclosure, free roaming often leads to accidents, as monitor lizards are inquisitive and smart, they will find trouble to get into.)

For further, more in-depth information this website is dedicated to the Savannah Monitor, and has been a great source of information for me : http://www.savannahmonitor.net/