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Monitor lizards are poached in some South- and Southeast Asian countries, as their organs and fat are used in some traditional medicines, although there is no scientific evidence as to their effectiveness. [38] [39] Monitor lizard meat, particularly the tongue and liver, is eaten in parts of India and Malaysia and is supposed to be an aphrodisiac.
Like the Komodo dragon, the water monitor will often eat carrion, [2] [17] or rotten flesh. By eating this decaying flesh, the lizard provides benefits to the ecosystem by removing infectious elements, cleaning the environment. [18] They have a keen sense of smell and can smell a carcass from far away.
Land monitor meat is considered edible (especially by indigenous Veddah and Rodiya people) while water monitor meat is not. Killing a land monitor is usually considered a cowardly act, and is frequently referred to folklore along with other harmless reptiles such as rat snakes (Garandiya). [34] [35]
Prey can include all manner of small animals: insects, smaller lizards, snakes, mammals, birds, and eggs. Meals are often eaten whole, thus the size of their meals may depend on the size of the animals. Many of the small species feed mostly on insects, with some being small lizard experts.
Mariana monitors in the Southern Mariana Islands shifted major prey classes when their regular prey began declining. [5] The monitors were known for being the top predator on Guam, [6] but the introduction of the brown tree snake (Boiga irregularis) led to a decrease in prey numbers, prompting the monitors to switch to eating invertebrates and foraging through human garbage.
Two monitor lizards were seen wrestling over scraps of food after snacks left behind from tourists have disappeared because of the coronavirus lockdown. The reptiles were grappling outside a ...
Like all monitors, they have slender, elongated necks. The tails are heavy and muscular, being thick at the base and laterally compressed towards the end. [4] Most true monitors have lean bodies with long tails that can take up over half of their entire body length, but the largest species are very robust and have proportionally short tails.
Florida has a big lizard problem. Between lion fish and Burmese pythons, Florida has a lot of invasive species problems -- and the newest is massive Nile Monitor Lizards. Nile Monitor Lizards can ...