Territoriality and seasonality in the home range of adult male free-ranging lace monitors (Varanus varius) in South-eastern Australia

The Lace Monitor (Varanus varius) is a large terrestrial opportunistic carnivore of eastern Australia. The home range and movement patterns of any species are critical to understanding their ecology, however, very few home range studies investigate reptiles. To address this knowledge gap, we undertook an investigation of the home range of V. varius using GPS data loggers. The monitors that we tracked, males greater than 5 kg, had a mean home range (95% MCP) of 65.5 ± (SE) 10.0 ha respectively. We found that the core home range of our study animals displayed almost no overlap, consistent with dominant males defending a territory. However, anecdotal observations suggest that large monitors will tolerate smaller individuals within their home range. Our study animals also displayed seasonal variation in their movement patterns. As expected, winter movements were greatly reduced, however, animals did make infrequent forays between favored roost and feeding locations during even the coldest months.