difference between the red ackies and the yellow ackies the color ?
are they locality specific or something ?
excuse my ignorance.
lookin' for some varanus people to chime in.
ck

They are very similar. And not everyone agrees on what makes them different. But here's what I got to the best of my knowledge.

There are three subspecies of varanus acanthurus. We have the red ackie which is classified as varanus acanthurus acanthurus, the yellow ackie known as varanus acanthurus brachyurus and varanus acanthurus insulanicus. I do not know the common name of the last one. The first two, reds and yellows, are most commonly available in the pet trade.

They are locality specific to some degree. They are found through most of northern Australia. The animals found in the north west are usually considered red ackies while those found in the east are yellows. There are still some scientists fighting about this and even some who believe there is another subspecies in there. But MOST tend to go with reds in the west and yellows in the east.

Aside from the color, red ackies get a little bigger than yellows and tend to have longer tails. Of course, like any animal, what they look like is going to be related to their bloodline. But the most obvious differences is their size and tail. Oh, and their patterns.

Personally I see no difference at all in their care or behavior. Some keepers claim the red males are more aggressive than yellow males. MHO I dont think that has anything to do with their subspecies but is more of a case-by-case basis. The same way most ball pythons are docile but Ive met some real maniacs over the years. Im sure its possible to get a mean red or a mean yellow here or there. Although Ive never met one :)

They are very similar. And not everyone agrees on what makes them different. But here's what I got to the best of my knowledge.

There are three subspecies of varanus acanthurus. We have the red ackie which is classified as varanus acanthurus acanthurus, the yellow ackie known as varanus acanthurus brachyurus and varanus acanthurus insulanicus. I do not know the common name of the last one. The first two, reds and yellows, are most commonly available in the pet trade.

They are locality specific to some degree. They are found through most of northern Australia. The animals found in the north west are usually considered red ackies while those found in the east are yellows. There are still some scientists fighting about this and even some who believe there is another subspecies in there. But MOST tend to go with reds in the west and yellows in the east.

Aside from the color, red ackies get a little bigger than yellows and tend to have longer tails. Of course, like any animal, what they look like is going to be related to their bloodline. But the most obvious differences is their size and tail. Oh, and their patterns.

Personally I see no difference at all in their care or behavior. Some keepers claim the red males are more aggressive than yellow males. MHO I dont think that has anything to do with their subspecies but is more of a case-by-case basis. The same way most ball pythons are docile but Ive met some real maniacs over the years. Im sure its possible to get a mean red or a mean yellow here or there. Although Ive never met one :)

Damn fine post brother! Keep it up..:master::master:

I to have heard that the red males are more aggressive. I didn't know the reds were a little biggie either..good stuff

thanx so much for your detailed explaination.
really appreciate your time.
ck

Hey no problem bro. Actually that was the lite version. Next time I'll really run off at the mouth, lol! Dont get me started talking varanids!

Yeah Larry the reds get bigger. The largest documented red was 34 inches. That was a wild specimen so who knows how big they can get in captivity. I've heard of 3' but Ive never seen one that big. Still, anything over 30" is a monster for an ackie.

The yellows tend to stay more in the 20-24" range. A lot of females dont even hit 20" more likely floating around the 16-18" range.

Last little tidbit. The name "brachyurus" means short tailed since..hold on to your hats....they have shorter tails! Or at least some do. Their range is so huge they are quite diverse in color, pattern and body types.

And just cuz I cant help it they are fantastic monitors. Everything cool about a monitor in a small package. They are comical little goofballs. Fearless, bold and inquisitive. Yes, they do hide and burrow and but when they are out and about they fear nothing. Even the hatchlings quickly lose any fear of their keeper and will greedily snatch food from your hand. I just love'em to tears. Give them large cages and they really get down and boogey. You get to see all sorts of cool behaviors. If given the chance they will dig complicated burrows sometimes with more than one entrance. They will somtimes share a burrow for a while and then move out and dig one of their own.

When my guys are breeding the male will often assist the female in digging a nesting burrow. Ive seen this with my own eyes. There is also a hierachy. Of course the male is usually dominant but in one of my groups I would say the large female is actually the top dog. And in any group, even if the male is king, you will have a dominant female who will rule over the rest. She will sometimes "mate" with the sub females. Thats why I like to keep them in trios. I might go as high as 1.3 in the future but for now I prefer 1.2 since it keeps the shenanegans to a minimum. I have been fortunate that I have not seen any real aggression from my gang. EXCEPT at feeding time. Then you gotta WATCH them or move them around because they will go banana sandwich when food is introduced and bite at anything that moves including legs, tails and toes of their cagemates. I dont move them to a feeding container I hate that I just seperate them in the cage or make sure everyone has their mouth full at the same time, lol.

Varanus nailed it! Awesome little monitors!

If they were just a little easier to breed and those damn eggs didnt take so long to hatch and werent quite so fragile I would bet they could be the next bearded dragon.

But I dont know if any monitor will ever be available on a massive scale. I mean I could easily order 100 baby beardies or 500 baby leos if I wanted to. I dont know if monitors, even ackies, will ever reach that level of production.

It would be quite an undertaking. You would need a HUGE amount of space, insane amounts of food, etc etc. And then we have the incubation issues which I have experienced myself along with most people who breed or attempt to breed monitors. Its tricky business.

Once you get them dialed in they are by no means difficult to keep. Actually Id say they are on the easy side as long as a few key elements are there. The biggest one, I thinkl, being high basking temps which is where some new keepers fall short.

Ive talked to some new keepers through email, pms, posts and whenever they tell me that they just got an ackie and its doing ok but it just doesnt seem right. Its sluggish, its not chowing down, not doing much of anything I always ask what are your temps. For most lizards a basking spot of 100 or 110 degrees will do just fine. But not these guys. You gotta heat'em. As Robyn mentioned on RR the minimum basking spot for these guys is 130 degrees. And I keep mine even higher. Just one spot not the whole cage or even half the cage. Just one spot that they can use or not use as it suits them. My basking temps hit 150-160 and they DO use it. Not all the time but its available for them if they want it. Aside from the right food, a good size cage, the right substrate and general good husbandry high basking temps are key if you really want them to thrive and breed.

Its all about choices. In my cages I have my high spots of 150-160, then if they move over a little on the platform they will be maybe 135-140. If they go down a level ( I use Retes stacks. All hail the mighty Retes stack) they will be maybe 100-110 and so on. And I watch them move about the cage and thermoregulate as they see fit. I let THEM make the decisions instead of trying to make the decisions for them. They are smarter then me when it comes to what they need so I give them the ball and let them run with it.

Some newbies are worried about thermal burns. Lemme tell ya, thermal burns happen when you have a cold lizard, in a cold cage with a TINY basking spot that is not hot enough to give the animal what it needs. So what does it do? It sits, and sits and sits trying desperately to reach a temperature that will never happen and winds up with a burn. Thats why its also important for the basking spot to cover the lizards entire body including the bulb. I use banks of bulbs. For small lizards 2 bulbs will do. For big guys 3,4 or even more have been used. Spreading the heat over a large area and warming the lizards whole body. Using this method the lizard will bask, warm up and split. He wont just sit there endlessly. Thats not what basking is all about. Monitors dont bask for fun, they bask to fill a need. They dont sit out in the sun all day they would be picked up by predators like popcorn. Its bask, get warm, get the hell back under cover. Or bask under cover if thats possible which I also provide.

Getting them to breed is not a problem if their conditions are good. Personally I dont cycle them, cool them, mess with the lights. I dont do anything. They just breed when they are ready. Thats not the challenge. The challenge is getting the females to nest properly and then incubating those damn eggs which can take 90-120 on average or could go even longer. Ive had both success and failure with my clutches. Im still learning. Its an ongoing process with these guys. They aint corn snakes thats for sure. Like many of you who have bred corns at one time or another I used to hatch corn snakes in a shoebox on the top shelf of my reptile room. No incubator and I really didnt know what I was doing this is going back 15 years. But they hatched anyway. Try that with some monitor eggs. Ha! ;)

You are the man brother!
Sounds like you have you plan down. I want to start a trio and attempt breeding . I really like ackies and want to educate myself as much as possible first. What do you consider the min or max cage size for a trio? I have access to pick of a clutch and how can you be assured you have 1 male and 2 females when laying down close to a grand? I heard it is very difficult to sex ackies as babies? I have always been a snake guy but there is something about these ackies that intrigue me? They are very cool little monitors. the perfect apartment monitor!

another valuable posting MACHINE in full battle array.
thanx for takin' the time bro.
ck

Yessir ol' Varanus has the goods. I wish we could get him posting more but hell he's puts so much into each post.. Appreciate it bro

You are the man brother!
Sounds like you have you plan down. I want to start a trio and attempt breeding . I really like ackies and want to educate myself as much as possible first. What do you consider the min or max cage size for a trio? I have access to pick of a clutch and how can you be assured you have 1 male and 2 females when laying down close to a grand? I heard it is very difficult to sex ackies as babies? I have always been a snake guy but there is something about these ackies that intrigue me? They are very cool little monitors. the perfect apartment monitor!


When it comes to adult monitors it's hard to go too big. Babies may get lost in a giant cage but adults really appreciate the space and they will use every inch of it. They arent like snakes. They wont just pick a spot they like and sit there. They will explore every inch of that cage.

For the trio the smallest I would go is 4x2x3. Meaning 4L x 2W x 3H. The extra height being there to give you room for a foot or so of substrate and still have ample cage space. That would be the bare minimum.

I go a little bigger. I have mine in 6L x 3W x 4H cattle troughs (stock tanks) with a wooden top. You dont really NEED all that height and could use a flat top but I wanted to try something different. For ackies floor space is more important than vertical space. They will climb to some degree if given the chance but its not vitally important as it is for say green tree monitors.

So my opinion, if you have the space, go for 6x3. Thats a nice size cage for a trio of adult ackies and will give them plenty of room to goof around. BUt, 4x2 or even 4x3 will do.

Now, as far as the sex, its pretty much impossible to sex baby ackies. You just have to pick your trio and hope for the best. The males *seem* to be a little more bold than the females so if you look into a baby cage and one guy is acting like a fraternity college kid on a Friday night that COULD be a male but thats just an educated guess. So far Ive been very lucky and my trios picked from hatchlings have been 1.2. At the very least you are hoping for 1.1 and then you can either try to pair up your additional male later or perhaps sell/trade that one. Although its harder to get rid of males than females. For some crazy reason a LOT of people seem to wind up with 1.2 when buying a trio. Coincidence or something more? Cant say for sure but it seems very, very rare that someone buys a trio and doesnt at least get 1.1.

So unfortunately you cant really be sure. Their sexual characteristics dont really start to show until they are larger. When they are adults its not that hard. Males have much larger heads and necks as well as hemipenal bulges. After a short while of working with adults you can pick out the males no problem.

I like your idea of getting them as hatchlings and raising them together right from the start. Thats your best chance of getting compatible animals. Introdoucing adults who dont know each other can sometimes be tricky.

I agree great apartment monitor or for anyone who would like a monitor but is somewhat limited on space.

Yessir ol' Varanus has the goods. I wish we could get him posting more but hell he's puts so much into each post.. Appreciate it bro

I kinda try to post where it makes sense. Meaning there are so many folks here who blow me away with ball pythons it seems almost silly for me to chime in with "Nice snake!" and clog the board.

But point taken I'll see if I can find more spots to throw out my witty retorts.

thanks for all the info ! I really want to get a trio started and soon as the money is available Im going to get my setup dialed in and buy 3 . Quick question about clutching ? The person I will be buying from bought from proexotics and have quality stock. today i went by there and they said there female triple clutched and they incubated identicle to the last clutch and the babies slit the eggs with there heads poked out and the next day they were all dead? I know I have given limited info but was wondering if you ever experienced this?

another valuable posting MACHINE in full battle array.
thanx for takin' the time bro.
ck


Have to agree. This is why I love this place. Great people with lots of knowledge. Thanks!

thanks for all the info ! I really want to get a trio started and soon as the money is available Im going to get my setup dialed in and buy 3 . Quick question about clutching ? The person I will be buying from bought from proexotics and have quality stock. today i went by there and they said there female triple clutched and they incubated identicle to the last clutch and the babies slit the eggs with there heads poked out and the next day they were all dead? I know I have given limited info but was wondering if you ever experienced this?

Yes, I have. Ive experienced it all. Ive had eggs go full term and the babies never make it out of the egg. Fully formed but dead in the egg. Ive also had a few that managed to slit the egg, poke their heads out or even crawl out and then died 24-72 hours later. Ive never had a whole clutch slit and then die but it doesnt really surprise me.

I wish I could give a solid answer but the bottom line is while we have made great strides in monitor keeping, breeding and nesting we are still learning when it comes to egg incubation. Its tricky business. Even the ackies who rank among the easier eggs to hatch are still hard.

It could be a lot of things. Sometimes a females first clutch will go down. Or perhaps they were incubated too wet and the babies drowned very late in the incubation. In your friends case, since it was a third clutch, maybe they were just weak and while they had the strength to bust out thats all they had and expired shortly after. Or maybe something went wrong during the incubation that effected their development. Too hot, too cold, a temp fluctuation, too wet, too dry, not enough air flow, too much air flow, cant really say for sure. Or, it could just be one of those things that happens for no clear reason. Ive seen it happen with ball python eggs which I would not call difficult to hatch. Everything seems fine and then a few of the babies crawl out and die.

It could be the female didnt nest right on that one. The sooner she gets those eggs out of her the better chance they have of actually hatching. If the female holds the eggs for too long as she searches for the right place to drop them your chances of healthy babies goes down. Could be the same female, same male, same cage, same nesting opportunities but on THAT particular clutch something was a little off that she didnt like and she held the eggs too long. Humidity, heat, nesting material, Jupiter wasnt perfectly aligned with Saturn, who knows.

The people I know who breed monitors have all experienced the loss of either eggs or hatchlings. Ive had clutches where they all charge out like gang busters and other times they emerge weak, need some TLC to get going and some inevitably die. This year in particular I lost a lot of eggs. Im always refining my incubation technique.

Your friend may have not done anything wrong at all. It just happens. I wish I could say why. But monitor eggs are just tricky. Its a VERY long incubation which leaves plenty of time for something, anything to go wrong. They arent snakes. I used to keep and breed snakes. Colubrid eggs are a joke you could incubate them in your pocket. Python eggs need a little more care but lets face it as long as you have a clue whats going on most if not all of your viable python eggs will hatch from MOST species. Not so with monitors. Its just the nature of the beast. I could compare them to green tree pythons. Getting them to lay is one thing. Hatching those darn eggs and getting strong, healthy babies is the real challenge.

From what I understand Robyn at PE, who I respect greatly, has a group of green trees he's been working with for a while. He gets copulation, viable eggs, but so far no babies. Maybe we're all missing some important piece of the puzzle. Jeff Lemm of the SDZ just recently hatched a few green tree monitors after 5 months of incubation! A very rare event. These are heavy hitters and even THEY have problems.

What I have learned is that the suggested 1 part water to 1 part perlite mix doesnt work right. At least for me. Its too wet. The eggs become turgid or tense, the incubation runs too long and I wind up with fully formed dead babies in eggs that look like golf balls. So Im down to 7 parts water to 10 parts perlite and that works better. I have clutch cooking right now in that mix from July 17 and they still look good. As far as temperature I like to stay at 85 degrees.

So I dont think it had anything to do with the quality of your friends stock. It may not have anything to do with his husbandry either. Its very possible he just got a bad clutch which happens to all of us at one time or another. They may have been doomed from the start.