# DWA Lizards



## Magners (Mar 30, 2008)

Just purely out of interest, I was a bit bored so I was browsing through some of the threads on here, are there actually any DWA lizards?

Apart from the obvious komodo dragon, but are there any others cause all that seems to be mentioned is snakes and the occasional caimen lol


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## Doodles (Aug 4, 2007)

beaded lizard and gila monster. Komodo isn't DWA however now that some researchers have found venom they maybe put on one day.


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## SiUK (Feb 15, 2007)

yes beaded lizards and gila monsters are DWA, strangely Komodos arnt


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## Viper (May 10, 2008)

Mexican beaded lizard and Gila monsters are the only DWA lizards !!


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## Magners (Mar 30, 2008)

Ahh, weird, I would have thought komodos definatly would have been on there, ah well lol. Thanks for the replies


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## stuartdouglas (Mar 5, 2008)

Crazy really, two lizards with a painful bite, but no fatalities are on the list, yet a 3m long lizard, with venom and seriously toxic saliva which has proven human fatalities is freely available to those with the money and the contacts


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## inkyjoe (Mar 31, 2008)

Theyve found toxic saliva in other monitors aswell, such as v. griseus. I think komodo dragons should be dwa, not just because of toxic salva but because theyre big nasty and dangerous, aswell as some of the other big monitors. Theyv got to be more dangerous than a lot of the mammals on the dwa list


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## SNAKEWISPERA (Aug 27, 2007)

They have also found venom glands in bearded dragons,


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## stuartdouglas (Mar 5, 2008)

I think the reason that nobody though to put komodo dragons on the list is that you just can't get hold of one. Apparently you have to be "gifted" a dragon by the head man of the Island. Which kind of means that Joe public ain't gonna get his mitts on one


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## Adam_R (Sep 26, 2007)

SNAKEWISPERA said:


> They have also found venom glands in bearded dragons,



yeah but from what ive heard there is no sign of them being dangerous and no sign of the venom glands being developed enough to deliver


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## Declan123 (Dec 29, 2007)

You cant just purchase Komodo's..., yes they are not DWA... but in this country you have to have a Zoology reasearchers liesence


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## ian14 (Jan 2, 2008)

Declan123 said:


> You cant just purchase Komodo's..., yes they are not DWA... but in this country you have to have a Zoology reasearchers liesence


I may be totally wrong but I have never heard of such a thing!!!! The licences needed are DWA (not in this case), Pet Shop Licence, and Zoo operators Licence. If you have the money then there is nothing to stop you buying a komodo, which at the end of the day is just a very big and nasty monitor lizard. CITES papers would, I believe, be needed, but nothing else.


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## SiUK (Feb 15, 2007)

aparently theres pair in private hands in holland I heard it a while back and then Marie mentioned it the other day.


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## Declan123 (Dec 29, 2007)

well i heard you had to have some sort of zoo lisence.... anyways you would need one hell of an enclosure to house them


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## Viper (May 10, 2008)

Declan123 said:


> well i heard you had to have some sort of zoo lisence.... anyways you would need one hell of an enclosure to house them


Yep doubt you would be able to fit that in your front room !!


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## Young_Gun (Jan 6, 2007)

ian14 said:


> I may be totally wrong but I have never heard of such a thing!!!! The licences needed are DWA (not in this case), Pet Shop Licence, and Zoo operators Licence. If you have the money then there is nothing to stop you buying a komodo, which at the end of the day is just a very big and nasty monitor lizard. CITES papers would, I believe, be needed, but nothing else.


Your totally right, as are you Si 

There are a couple of pairs in Europe and two as far as I know in the US.


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## bullet tooth t0ny (Apr 24, 2008)

hi guys,dose london zoo still hold its komodo.i did hear that london zoo had one die on them and was left with just one.i did make a trip to see it and it did not look very well to me.

someone did say at the zoo that they was very hard to keep in captivaty.:2thumb:


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## Declan123 (Dec 29, 2007)

There probabaly are hard to keep in captivity...

Chester Zoo have got it sorted though, had lots of hatchlings,


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## slither61 (Nov 18, 2006)

Hi all,

I thought, Komodos just had saliva filled with so much bacteria if you were bitten you would die of septicemia if not treated same with the animals they feed on they ambush bite and then wait for them to die it could be a couple of days depending on the size of prey.

I did not think they had venom too??.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

slither61 :snake::snake::snake::snake:


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## SiUK (Feb 15, 2007)

slither61 said:


> Hi all,
> 
> I thought, Komodos just had saliva filled with so much bacteria if you were bitten you would die of septicemia if not treated same with the animals they feed on they ambush bite and then wait for them to die it could be a couple of days depending on the size of prey.
> 
> ...


 
well Dr Fry did a study into in a little while back and found that they actually have very primative venom glands along with some other lizards.

Heres an extract from it.



> Early evolution of the venom system in lizards and snakes
> Nature doi:10.1038/nature04328
> 
> Bryan G. Fry (1,2), Nicolas Vidal (3,4), Janette A. Norman (2), Freek J. Vonk (5), Holger Scheib (6,7), S. F. Ryan Ramjan (1), Sanjaya Kuruppu (8.), Kim Fung (9), S. Blair Hedges (3), Michael K. Richardson (5), Wayne. C. Hodgson (8.), Vera Ignjatovic (10,11), Robyn Summerhayes (10,11) & Elazar Kochva (12)
> ...


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## Declan123 (Dec 29, 2007)

very interesting.... thanks for sharing


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## monitormike (May 20, 2008)

They are not dwa because they are endangered you cant get them only very few zoos have them and they are stock left after breeding for original dragons that were taken before the law was pasted. they don't need to be dwa you cant keep them.


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## slither61 (Nov 18, 2006)

SiUK said:


> well Dr Fry did a study into in a little while back and found that they actually have very primative venom glands along with some other lizards.
> 
> Heres an extract from it.


Hi all,

Thanks SiUK for reply, and informative post.

slither61 :snake::snake::snake::snake:


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## Matt Harris (Aug 21, 2007)

Apart from the issue of primitive venom glands, which a lot of lizards may have, I think the primary issue with a Komodo bite is still that of the bacteria in the saliva...


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## Scott W (May 19, 2007)

First European breeding of Komodos was by a private keeper :whistling2:

Some of 'his' animals went to London zoo & Colchester.

Pretty sure that all animals are technically still owned by the Indonesian government.


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## Scott W (May 19, 2007)

Magners said:


> Just purely out of interest, I was a bit bored so I was browsing through some of the threads on here, are there actually any DWA lizards?
> 
> Apart from the obvious komodo dragon, but are there any others cause all that seems to be mentioned is snakes and the occasional caimen lol


 
Gila's are the best DWA lizards, although I may be slightly biased :whistling2:


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## Alfonzo (Mar 7, 2008)

I love Gilas, and I think if ever I were to go down the DWA route they'd be the first animal on my list...what fantastic animals!


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## Declan123 (Dec 29, 2007)

I with you on that one mate, i much prefer them to their cousins the Beaded


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## evilchild (Jul 3, 2008)

yeah the Gila's are cool. am i right in thinking that these don't let go when theyt bite? unless submerged in water? or am i thinking of something else?


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## Declan123 (Dec 29, 2007)

evilchild said:


> yeah the Gila's are cool. am i right in thinking that these don't let go when theyt bite? unless submerged in water? or am i thinking of something else?


I dont know lol, and tbh i dont really wanna find out....

But yes, ive heard they hang on like a Pit Bull


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## Dan (Jan 11, 2006)

It's amazing how much crap is spread about a lizard species that most of us will never see up close and personal!

There are NO true komodos anywhere in captivity. There are Varanus komodoensis from Flores though 

You do NOT need a zoo license, DWA or Pet shop license to own one. You DO have to follow the guidelines set by DEFRA for this appendix one species however.

They have been bred in private hands in the UK atleast once, although i have heard rumours there was another breeding last year from someone else. To my knowledge there are around 7 in this country outside of zoos (who, as usual, are managing to make a mess of keeping them)


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