I have been researching for a large pet lizard since about 2003 but I have never had the space and/or time for one due to my venomous hobby.
Well, since I had to "mostly" give up on venomous (Related thread here) my collection got reduced to 1/3 of it's former size and on top of that I have this huge cage that I prepared for the King Cobra, I went for it.
The animal I got is a male Philippine Water Monitor. It is from the Varanus salvator complex but taxonomy here is a mess so some call it Varanus cummingi, others Varanus samarensis etc. Regardless of what he is, this is a captive bred male and one of the two first legal imports to Europe. I didn't get the female as I only have space and time for one.
Captive bred large monitors are very nice animals to work with as due to their intelligence, they get "tame" very easily. Normally they start skittish but get more docile with daily interaction however this boy already started quite docile and I hand feed him so he is super comfortable with me as you can see in the photos (middle of the day, animal quite warm.)
This is a different mindset from snakes as they require more care. Almost daily feeding, daily interaction, keeping an intelligent and curious animal entertained etc. I think this is something that can grow up with my family...
Let's see...
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