I went to Noah's Pets yesterday to ask about rat pinkies and decided to pop on into the reptile room to look around at new arrivals as I always do. Well they had leopard geckos, two savannah monitors, a handful of baby corns and a couple of king snakes. When I went further into the room to look at the red-tailed boas, one cage didn't have a snake, but this interesting looking lizard. The lable on the cage said Asian Water Monitor. I asked the man many questions about him. What size enclosure it would need (a room, he said), how are thier temperments, are they prone to bite, what do they eat, ect. We also got to see it eat a pinky and I got some cool pics on my cell phone.

I figured this lizard would be hard to keep even if I waited years and years and got experience. After researching a bit more on them, I've decided a 7ft+ lizard living in its own room is not something I could handle years down the road, so the Asian Water Monitor is now off my list of reptiles I want.

But they did have two savannah monitors. One was still a baby, the other fully grown. I didn't get a chance to ask the man about them as much because we had to leave, so I was wondering. Are they easier to keep than an AWM? What size enclosure do they require? What do they eat?

Don't worry, I won't be getting a monitor for many years, but I'd like to know a little bit about a savannah monitor so I know if I should cross it off my list as well. And if a Savannah monitor does too difficult for me to handle, what monitor would you recommend? I've heard there are beginner monitors out there.