Varanids mostly.

[kinyonga]

I saw an amazing show on pbs tonight about lizards in Australia with Eric Pianka and monitors (not all in Australia). I never new there was such a tiny monitor...absolutely awesome...
http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~varanus/brevicauda.html

They attached cameras to their backs to see what they saw when they were hunting.

There was a komodo dragon...puppy dog tame...in the London zoo.
They talked about target training and showed how well it worked with the varanids. (I've done a little target training with my chameleons.)

They also showed how smart varanids are...they learned to tap the black target to get food and ignore the white one. They were also trained to find 6 pieces of food or they couldn't leave a room.

Interesting!

 

[jojackson]

The brevi's are awesome little guys, but incredibly expensive here still. Behaviour wise, as with ackies (V.acanthurus) they are every bit the larger monitors, much attitude LOL

Wish I could get PBS here!

 

[kinyonga]

I didn't think anyone could buy Australian lizards?

 

[jojackson]

I didn't think anyone could buy Australian lizards?

As far as Aussy authorities are concerned, they cant, (from Australia) unless they are in Australia and licenced.
However the US and other countrys have quite a few species of Aussy reptiles, these were once Imported/exported before the total ban.
As far as I know There are no brevicaudus outside Australia, however our monitors are popular, I may be wrong.

 

[SSimsswiSS]

Saw this show to. Wow, half a decade of study out in the Aussie desert. Wonder how he lost one of his fingers.

 

[hallenhe]

Cool - I missed the show, and will have to catch it in reruns.
Pianka and Laurie Vitt put out a big, beautiful book a few years back: "Lizards - Windows to the Evolution of Diversity", and they discuss monitor intelligence a bit, giving the example of one that could count to 5 (if you gave it 5 bugs, then opened the door for it to go into another room with another treat, then switched to three or four bugs in a couple week, it would stay in the first room looking for the fifth bug; when they tested it with more bugs, they found 5 was more or less the upper limit), and a zoo monitor that picked its keeper's pocket, tongue-flicking the wallet once he had it out.

 

[nightcrawler]

Yea that sounds really interesting. Ive been getting more into Varanids laity. I was reading a book in my schools library that was about komodo dragons. I was mostly reading about their behavior, and thos kinds of things because it was just a short break between school work. I never new monitors were that smart. I forget what the experiment that they did was because it was a month or two ago, but it was interesting and if I had more time I would read that whole book.

And this post reminded me of Kents (I think it was his) thread about his komodo for sale on April fools day. Oh that was so funny. Makes me wanna do that with fliers at my school. I wonder if any of the grad students would take it seriously or call me to see if I was for real.