In my opinion savs are great, but not the best first monitor. I have owned a couple. They eat a ton and take alot of time to keep tame, clean and healthy. Before anyone gets one they should read Daniel Bennett & Ravi Thakoordyal's book The Savannah Monitor Lizard. It can be purchased cheap on amazon or some other book site. It is the bible for savannahs. Do not impluse buy. Do you research until your comfortable with you knowledge. Also get all your supplies together. Your location for your cage and get it built or bought and setup. Make sure you find a good source for roaches, crickets, worms and the occasional rat. I know alot of people feed rat diets or "monitor" diet. I think this is wrong considering they don't eat any of that in the wild and most of the savs in captivity are wild caught. One good source for insects is the great outdoors. If you can find a safe pesticide free zone, you can catch grasshoppers and any other bugs you might find. Make sure they are no poisonous. Savannahs eat scorpions in the wild. They have become immune to them so they can eat them. They also will take giant african millipedes. These would be a good supplement, but very expensive for a meal. Roaches are best with great protien and fat content. Plus they tend to be healthy and easy to start your own colony. Savannahs also use a good about of electricity to keep them hot. I suggest and only use high quality UVB/UVA spot. Tube lights are pointless. They don't put off enough of the uvb/uva they need. You should also use repcal with d3 for insect dusting. Daniel Bennett's book is amazing it is a must for any monitor owner. There are also a ton of other great monitor books out there, but they are expensive and hard to find. Feel free to pm with questions. GOOD LUCK! Happy Monitor keeping.