Range

Australia is the native home of the spencer's monitor. Here they can be found in the North of the country on the black soil plains of central Queensland and the Northern Territory.

Habitat

These animals are restricted to grassland on the treeless black soil plans. This features highly cracked clay soils. Females will move to low ridges to nest.

Reproduction

Mating takes place in August.

From October to November they will deposit their eggs in to a burrow, often near a termite mound. A clutch of eggs may include 11-35 eggs.

Hatching occurs after 90 days. The hatchlings tend to be covered with a pattern of brown and white markings.

Behavior

Unlike many other monitor species these animals have been recorded to be active by night.

These animals are primarily ground-dwelling and will spend most of their time in a burrow or in a large soil crack.

Predators and Threats

When threatened these animals have been observed to feign death, freezing in one spot and not moving in the hope the predator will move on. Like other monitors they will also hiss and thrash their tail when threatened.

Living on the black soil plains when fleeing a predator they may bury in to one of the cracks and wedge themselves there making it difficult for the threat to remove them.

Juvenile individuals are more inclined to climb trees or overhanging rocks to escape threats.

Some of these are poached for the illegal wildlife trade.

They may inadvertently be poisoned after foraging baits which were intended to control dingo populations.

Cane toads are seen as an increasing threat to this species as they consume them and are then poisoned.

Quick facts

These animals may also be referred to as the plains goanna.

Spencer's monitor was named for an English-Australian biologist, Walter Baldwin Spencer.