Is It Legal to Own an Ackie Monitor? State-by-State Guide

The Ackie monitor, also called the spiny-tailed or ridge-tailed monitor, is one of the monitor lizards most often recommended to someone keeping their first one, mostly because it runs around two feet and doesn't carry the size or bite-force reputation bigger monitors do. That reputation turns out to matter legally too. Of the 52 jurisdictions, 40 place no restriction on it at all, and the four places it is unavailable, Washington DC, Hawaii, New York City and New Mexico, aren't reacting to this species specifically so much as to lizards or monitors in general.

Where Ackie Monitors Stand

Louisiana Bans Two Monitors, Not the Genus

Louisiana is the one state in this research that legislates against monitor lizards by name, and it's worth being precise about what that ban does and doesn't reach. Its prohibited nonnative-reptile list names the savannah monitor and the Nile monitor specifically. Varanus acanthurus doesn't appear on that list, or on Louisiana's restricted list either. Both species Louisiana bans are large monitors; the Ackie is a dwarf species that tops out around two feet. Louisiana's rule was built around size, and the Ackie simply falls outside the category it targets.

Arkansas takes the more direct route of naming it as legal outright. Its unrestricted captive wildlife list clears ten monitor species by name:

Monitor Lizards (Genus Varanus: V. acanthurus, V. albigularis, V. glauerti, V. jobiensis, V. kingorum, V. macraei, V. pilbarensis, V. prasinus, V. salvator, V. timorensis)

Varanus acanthurus is the first species on that list, exempt from Arkansas's possession, breeder, and importation permit codes entirely. Massachusetts takes the same approach on a shorter list, naming the "Spiny-tailed or Ridge-tailed Monitor" as the only monitor lizard on its own no-permit exemption list.

The Two Real Dead Ends

Four places put an Ackie monitor out of reach of a pet keeper, and not one of them is about this species. DC's health code lists exactly seven categories of legal pet, running from dogs and cats through domesticated rodents, cage birds, and ferrets, down to "non-venomous snakes, fish, and turtles, traditionally kept in the home for pleasure rather than for commercial purposes." Lizards don't appear in any of the seven, so every lizard in the District is barred by omission.

New York City and New Mexico are the other two, and both catch the animal by family. The New York City Health Code prohibits "any member of the family Varanidae," which puts the smallest monitor in the pet trade under the same six words as the Komodo dragon. New Mexico's importation list names five monitors, the Indian, yellow, desert, Komodo and green tree, and then closes with a default clause: any live non-domesticated animal not on the list "will be designated group IV until such time as another determination is made by the director." Group IV importation is barred to the general public. So in both places the Ackie is banned for being a Varanus, which is exactly the reasoning Louisiana declined to use.

Hawaii takes the opposite approach and names Varanus acanthurus outright on its restricted animal list. But that list is headed for research and exhibition, and a university or licensed exhibitor can hold one under a permit that a pet owner can't apply for. It's the same treatment Hawaii gives the savannah and Nile monitor: a species-specific listing that simply never opens a pet-ownership door.

The Three Permit States

New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Maine require a permit rather than banning the Ackie outright. Rhode Island's rule is the most direct, requiring an exotic animal possession permit for "the Gila Monster, Beaded Lizard (Heloderatidae), and all Monitors (Varanidae)," with no size exception. New Jersey names Varanus on its permit-required list directly, at N.J.A.C. 7:25-4.3(a)3.ix, as "Monitor - Varanus spp.", so the Ackie is a named permit species rather than one swept up by the state's catch-all. As in Rhode Island there is no size exception, which is the recurring problem for this species: the argument that a two-foot monitor should be read differently from a six-foot one has nothing in the text to attach to. Maine's clean list names only the savannah monitor among monitors, so the Ackie falls back to Maine's general importation and possession permit requirement; whether an individual keeper is actually issued that permit for a pet Ackie wasn't confirmed in what we reviewed.

West Virginia Regulates the Shipment, Not the Species

West Virginia never named the Ackie monitor, and the rule that reaches it is not on any species list. W. Va. Code § 20-2-13 says that "no person shall transport into or have in his possession within this state any live wildlife or viable eggs thereof from without the state, except as authorized by an importation permit issued by the director." Wildlife is defined in § 20-1-2 as wild birds, wild animals, game and fur-bearing animals, fish, reptiles, amphibians, mollusks and crustaceans, and the reptile and amphibian clause carries no nativity qualifier and no captive-bred exception. A Ackie monitor shipped in from a breeder is therefore live wildlife from without the state.

The argument that an out-of-state animal sits outside the chapter is closed before it can be made: § 20-2-4(b) says wildlife lawfully taken outside of this state is subject to the same laws and rules as wildlife taken within it. What is missing is the other half. No rule in Title 58 implements § 20-2-13 outside aquaculture, the Division of Natural Resources publishes no application for an importation permit, and the only penalty the section spells out is written for coyotes. The requirement is clear on the page and invisible in practice, which is the honest thing to tell someone moving to Huntington with a tank in the car.

The Takeaway

Add it up and the Ackie monitor is about as legally uncomplicated as a monitor lizard gets in the US. Forty of the 52 jurisdictions place no restriction on it, Arkansas and Massachusetts clear it by name, and Louisiana's monitor ban, unusual as it is, was never aimed at a species this size. The four dead ends are Washington DC, Hawaii, New Mexico and New York City, and six more places route it through a permit instead of a straightforward yes. As always, city and county ordinances can still add restrictions a state list won't show, so it's worth a local check even in a state that clears it. The exotic pet legal hub shows how far that sits from the Nile monitor, the species most of those monitor bans were written for.

To see this at a glance, our interactive map of Ackie monitor laws shades every state we've checked, and clicking a state gives you the rule it comes from.

Sources & Further Reading