Arizona: Sightings Of Giant Monitor Lizard
Posted by: Loren Coleman on May 29th, 2010
It all started like we’ve see it happen hundreds of times. An irrigation district worker in Eloy, Arizona, told a farmer he saw an alligator or a dragon or something in the water.
Everyone said “What’s wrong with you, Dave?” and they laughed at him, reported local KOLD News 13.
Then more and more accounts began coming in.
Officials with Arizona’s Phoenix Herpetological Society (PHS) decided to take the reports of a 5-foot to 6-foot lizard living in the desert seriously, and go take a look. Quickly the group from tail drag marks and fresh digs. The accounts turned out to be true. The sightings led to a surprising discovery.
In this 2008 file photo, Daniel Marchand of the Phoenix Herpetological Society drapes a rescued Asian water monitor over his shoulder.
Members of the PHS said they searched the desert in Eloy following accounts of a large lizard and found a 5 ft, 4 in reptile within a few minutes, KPHO-TV, Phoenix, reported earlier this week on May 26th.
The animal was positively identified as an Asian water monitor (Varanus salvator). The lizard appeared to have been living in the desert for several months. They grow up to 6 feet long, and can live 25 years.
“He’s a little thin. His tail area should be fatter,” PHS’ reptile handler Dan Marchand said, who speculated it was a released or escaped pet.
The lizard was taken to the Phoenix Herpetological Society’s sanctuary to recover.
Second largest lizard in the world (only to the Komodo Dragon) is the Asian water monitor. This one found in 2005, is examined by Debbie Gibson, PHS vice president, and her colleague Dan Marchand, curator.
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Loren Coleman no longer writes for Cryptomundo. His archived posts remain here at Cryptomundo.
Wait a minute, you mean this wasn’t a bunch of otters swimming in formation? And the eyewitness testimony wasn’t horribly wrong? Plus you find things when you take eyewitness reports seriously and then go looking? My head is spinning at such strange concepts!
Monitor lizards are actually very common as pets so if this was an escapee, it would not surprise me at all.
What I do find interesting is that it survived so well for an extended amount of time in this desert environment. While there are species of monitor lizards that live in arid climates, Asian water monitors are pretty specifically adapted to tropical watery habitats. These are hardy animals, but a monitor of this particular species going for several months in the desert is interesting to me.
You might be surprised what you can find, if you just go out and look.
I could have sworn an Alligator Monitor was the 2nd largest lizard in the world. Aren’t they larger than the Asian Water Monitor?
I lived in Bisbee Arizona in 1983. ON Thanksgiving Day that year, I was walking alone and seen a lizard that was HUGE! Its head looked identical to the one in the picture. It was looking at me from the tall weeds at the base of the mountain. Nobody believed me when I got back home and told them I had seen a huge lizard.