Walked together around the park for about a mile-and-a-half or so. It’s now warm where I live and the temp was 70/72 degrees Fahrenheit. Nothing better for your dragon getting natural sunlight for an hour to two hours in the day, and steps in to keep them fit and healthy.

Over 6 years he's been slowly burrowing holes in his hide. It's a big Aztec pyramid that acts as his basking gradient and underneath is where he sleeps at night. I hollowed out the first layer so he could hide under it. But now there's holes tunneling from end to end and when I finally looked in one of them. I saw like 3 or 4 more tunnels!!

My guy is so active and curious it doesn't surprise me. About to build him a new pyramid and new enclosure. I want to double the vertical height.

Any guesses from his head whether he's a boy or girl?

I know there's like some high red and high yellow lines. But why are there no high melanin or albino ackies? Also while looking into this I discovered the island eidge tail monitor!! They look amazing. I have an 8 year old ackie who is awesome. And I'm looking at getting another monitor or maybe even a tegu. Here's a photo of the island ridge tail monitor. You can't really find many pictures. But they just look like a high black version of an ackie monitor, it's varanus insulanicus, and this is interesting they used to be known as varanus acanthurus insulanicus, so a subset of ackie? Not a lot of info but they look amazing!

Im so excited to interact with her once she settled in

The fact that she is (I think) sleeping in my presence makes me so happy, and then I had to leave to go grab breakfast :(

Another day of natural sunlight exposure for my son. Nature time is always a good time.

It's been a few years since my last monitor passed? And I happened to be offered a great deal on this one, so I pulled the trigger on this subadult suspected female red ackie (Varanus acanthurus). She was just starting to shed when I picked her up from the local expo. She did a fair bit of shedding as soon as she got warmed up in her enclosure.

I broke the camera lense on my phone and brought it to the beach and dropped it in the sand and now when I take a video there’s rattling because sand got in the broken cameras lense.

Anyways Charlie’s doing good!! I feed her today, she’s really getting comfortable in my hand.

I gave her a mealworm and instead of running away with it and rubbing it in a rock she rubbed it on my hand and that was… gross. But YAYYY progress

His first time outdoors and he did great. Despite him seeing the wavelengths beyond the human eyes for the first time in a long time, he only defecated once and was happy roaming the grass fields, feeling the natural sunlight, and climbing the trees.

Courage, consistency, and patience to build trust with these dragons. No more tail whips and biting anymore from my son, lol. I'm proud with the progress, especially with an Ornate Nile Monitor.
Tips I wanted to share for future owners who're thinking of getting a Nile and/or Ornate Nile monitor; Spend time with them in your room or wherever you place their enclosure at, consistently (e.g., reading a book by them, watching tv, starring at them, etc.) No handling at all for the first 4 weeks-8 weeks (Give them time to adjust to your presence). Start target training with tongs, then later with serving their food on a plate. Third month, I started desensitizing by holding him from under his belly and rewarding him with food every other day. Four month, l started holding unto him with my hand for a few minutes, ensuring him I won't eat him by rewarding him with food and releasing afterwards. Fifth/six months in, I allowed him to free roam my room and gave him bath time to swim which allowed him to get used to my presence. Seven/eight months in, I bring him out to the park/outdoors every other day for an hour for enrichment, him getting used to the UVA light spectrum that humans can't see, and natural sunlight to promote calcium and vitamin D synthesis. Eight almost nine months later, he is as docile as a puppy. The process is messy but you'll eventually have to face your fears. Mines was accepting the painful fate of getting tail whips and defecation on my hands/arms during the process/journey.

Don’t worry, he’s just a baby so the big tent is already on the way, but for right now I wanted to know is this a good amount of substrate for him to dig through and then under that I use the clay kit and build him tunnels and I just wanted to know if this was enough for my guy. It’s definitely about 9 inches deep

She may be going a bit crazy for calcium crickets but at least she’s cute while at it. At this point I got a collection of cricket legs

*Vicious oops

She is doing great!
She just finished shedding, but still has some stuck shed on the tip of her tail. if you guys have any tips on raising humidity let me know!

She’s also doing amazing with feeding, she’s getting more comfortable with me every time I feed her.

After a week of leaving her alone I tried offering my hand and bribing her with her favourite snack and she came right up. She did not like me pulling out my phone tho. I really have to get over my ick of bugs I pull back once she starts trying to smash them into my hand 🌝

I was so worried about her not coming out to eat, turn around and see her chasing a cricket I put in two seconds ago haha, she basked for like a minute and the proceeded to climb a bit. Admiring her from afar 🥹

Enjoy my disgust when she starts smashing the mealworm into my hand