(06-21-2012, 06:53 PM)Victor Leigh Wrote: This is the first time I am seeing such a beautiful monitor lizard. The ones that I have seen here are just dull gray in color. Some can grow to very big sizes. I have seen one that's not less than four feet from nose to tail. Sadly these monitor lizards are not welcome in Malaysia. They are killed, more or less, on sight. In Thailand, they are welcomed but also killed on sight. For food.
Thanks Victor, she is quite pretty. Actually, tegus are not monitors, they are pretty distantly related, though they do fill some similar niches in south america, and this type, the columbian Tegu, has some very similar mannerisms to some of the smaller monitors in Indonesia & Malaysia. Its actually a very cool example of convergent evolution in my opinion.