All monitors have "venom" in their saliva?

[CoolioTiffany]

So yesterday I was talking to a friend while handling this baby water monitor and he said that all monitors do have a little venom in their saliva. I was also watching part of that dumb fatal attraction show and they had also said that monitors have venom in their saliva.

Is this true and would this also include Tegus (since they are kind of considered monitors but are in their own category)?

[dembonez]

So yesterday I was talking to a friend while handling this baby water monitor and he said that all monitors do have a little venom in their saliva. I was also watching part of that dumb fatal attraction show and they had also said that monitors have venom in their saliva.

Is this true and would this also include Tegus (since they are kind of considered monitors but are in their own category)?

good question and i saw a video on youtube saying the same thing now im not sure how potent the venom is from what i understand its nothing really now about the tegu question i would also love to know! i hope someone responds soon thanks for posting this!

[tjm]

Monitors do have venom but its weak. It more less stops your blood from clotting where they bite you. Thats why you tend to bleed a bit more but its no big deal.

[CoolioTiffany]

Monitors do have venom but its weak. It more less stops your blood from clotting where they bite you. Thats why you tend to bleed a bit more but its no big deal.

Does this include Tegus as well? I know some people who've been bitten by monitors before and nothing happened so that is why I was curious to know this question. Thanks for the response!

[tjm]

I dont know anything about tegus. Sorry.

[Hulihzack]

As far as I know, Komodos are the only monitors that have been proven to have any real venom. Monitors (wild ones at least, don't ask me about captive) have infectious saliva due to their rather unclean diets. So rather than a venom attacking the nervous system or cardiovascular, it just gets really infected.

Tegus and monitors do have an anticoagulant in their saliva, and that I can say from first hand (literally, my own hand) experience. A 3 foot tegu bit me and it bled for 3 days straight, non stop.

[tjm]

A while back on a show they did a ct scan or something on a komodo and found glands. The glands do produce venom. It comes up around their teeth and gums.

[Skiploder]

Not just Komodos..........

http://www.venomdoc.com/forums/viewt...62f5b0678cfbb1

C'mon guys - a simple search using "varanid venom" would have not only yielded you this thread but the actual paper.............

[Skiploder]

So yesterday I was talking to a friend while handling this baby water monitor and he said that all monitors do have a little venom in their saliva. I was also watching part of that dumb fatal attraction show and they had also said that monitors have venom in their saliva.

Is this true and would this also include Tegus (since they are kind of considered monitors but are in their own category)?

I say this in all honesty Tiff, with no attempts at being snide:

Don't you find it ironic that some people have condemned the "Fatal Attraction" episode with the Urutu and the monitors as disgusting and awful and full of untruths..........

..........and then you come to find that it was correct where many forum-goers were wrong - that monitors are venomous?

As for your question regarding tegus:

http://www.venomdoc.com/forums/viewt...highlight=tegu

[Skiploder]

As far as I know, Komodos are the only monitors that have been proven to have any real venom. Monitors (wild ones at least, don't ask me about captive) have infectious saliva due to their rather unclean diets. So rather than a venom attacking the nervous system or cardiovascular, it just gets really infected.

Tegus and monitors do have an anticoagulant in their saliva, and that I can say from first hand (literally, my own hand) experience. A 3 foot tegu bit me and it bled for 3 days straight, non stop.

Zack:

Komodos were widely thought to kill prey by septicemia - bacterial infections of the blood - that was proven to be untrue.

The problem with that theory is that the death of large prey occured too quickly to be attributable to systemic bacterial poisoning. It's one of those urban legend things - sort of. While they have a mouth full of many strains of nasty bacteria, that's not what was causing rapid swelling and blood pressure/clotting changes.