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Monitor lizards have long necks, powerful tails and claws, and well-developed limbs. The adult length of extant species ranges from 20 cm (7.9 in) in some species such as Varanus sparnus , to over 3 m (10 ft) in the case of the Komodo dragon , though the extinct megalania ( Varanus priscus ) may have reached lengths of more than 7 m (23 ft).
Nile monitors feed on a wide variety of prey items, including fish, frogs and toads (even poisonous ones of the genera Breviceps and Sclerophrys), small reptiles (such as turtles, snakes, lizards, and young crocodiles), birds, rodents, other small mammals (up to domestic cats and young antelopes ), eggs (including those of crocodiles, agamids ...
The Komodo dragon (Varanus komodoensis), also known as the Komodo monitor, is a large reptile of the monitor lizard family Varanidae that is endemic to the Indonesian islands of Komodo, Rinca, Flores, Gili Dasami, and Gili Motang.
Young monitor lizards are more colourful than adults. Young have a series of dark crossbars on the neck, throat and back. The belly is white, banded with dark crossbars and are spotted with grey or yellow (particularly in the eastern part of the range).
Monitor lizard venom is extremely complex and diverse due to the great range of ecological niches that they occupy. [12] Emerald tree monitor skull. Tree monitors have the most potently fibrinogenolytic venoms of all monitor lizards, matched only by the also arboreal banded monitor from the subgenus Odatria.
Tourists on safari are warned about lions and leopards, but maybe they should be cautioned about giant lizards. A group of tourists was camped out at the Skukuza camp site in South Africa's Kruger ...
The monitor lizards require approximately 3 to 4 full hibernation periods (years) to reach their full size (about 55–65 cm excluding their tails) and at least 3 hibernation periods before they become sexually mature. The overall lifespan of desert monitors in the wild does not normally exceed around 8 years in both males and females. [11]
An intelligent lizard, several specimens of V. albigularis have demonstrated the ability to count as high as six in an experiment conducted by Dr. John Philips at the San Diego Zoo in 1999. [21] Philips offered varying numbers of snails, and the monitors were able to distinguish numbers whenever one was missing. [22] [23]