Diet
The Mangrove monitor is an opportunistic carnivore feeding on the eggs of reptiles and birds, mollusks, rodents, insects, crabs, smaller lizards, fish, and carrion. Mangrove monitors are the only monitor capable of catching fish in deep water. In some parts of its range it is known to eat juvenile crocodiles.
A study done in 1993 showed that mangrove monitors in the Southern Mariana Islands shifted major prey classes when their regular prey began declining. The monitors were known for eating shrews on Guam, but the introduction of the brown tree snake (Boiga irregularis) led to decreased shrew numbers, prompting the monitors to switch to eating invertebrates and foraging through human garbage.
Read more about this topic: Varanus Indicus
Famous quotes containing the word diet:
“I learned from my two years’ experience that it would cost incredibly little trouble to obtain one’s necessary food, even in this latitude; that a man may use as simple a diet as the animals, and yet retain health and strength.... Yet men have come to such a pass that they frequently starve, not for want of necessaries, but for want of luxuries.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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—Dorothy H. Cohen (20th century)
“Literary tradition is full of lies about poverty—the jolly beggar, the poor but happy milkmaid, the wholesome diet of porridge, etc.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)