18 monitor lizards brought to life in plastic box ‘artificial incubator’

Mumbai: Eighteen monitor lizards have crawled to life in a plastic box over the past three days. They were among a clutch of 44 eggs that had been kept to hatch for seven months. A few more newborns were expected to come to life any time.
The pregnant lizard had been rescued by the state forest department from Chembur around October. The eggs were placed in an artificially created environment, the closest that it could come to the natural space where the mother would have left them.
The eggs were placed in the ordinary plastic container which had holes for passage of air.Inside the plastic box was the substrate – a mix of soil, charcoal and coconut peat – that produced the right environment for the eggs to hatch, said zoologist Chinmay Joshi who monitored and controlled the environment within the plastic box. The substrate has properties to keep out fungi and bacteria and provide a healthy ambience for the monitor lizard eggs to hatch, he said.
Every four days or so, he would open the plastic container and take a peek into it to ensure that all was well. “I had to spray water in it… The right temperature and humidity for survival of the eggs had to be maintained,” Joshi said, adding that this summer season’s sweltering heat proved a big challenge.
Due to the heat, a few eggs have got spoilt while some turned out to be infertile, said Pawan Sharma of Resqink Association for Wildlife Welfare, the NGO at whose rescue centre the lizard was being rehabilitated. The lizard had been spotted and rescued by forest officials. It was likely in a state of stress when it laid the eggs elsewhere.
Though such an experiment of artificial incubation has been tried out to hatch snake eggs, Joshi pointed out that it is for the first time that it is being done with a monitor lizard’s eggs.
TOI had reported last July about a similar experiment undertaken with cobra eggs. A biologist had been tasked with taking care of the cobra eggs found in Kandivali. The eggs had been carefully nurtured at the biologist’s Bhandup home till 13 baby cobras wriggled to life.