A Monitor Lizard in the Philippines

Abstract

Until 1976 Gray's monitor lizard was known to science only by two museum specimens, neither of which gave any data more precise than ‘Luzon’. In 1975 the author discovered a third which identified an area on Luzon, and in 1976 he went to the Philippines and found this large monitor, which some scientists had thought might be extinct, widely distributed in forests in southern Luzon. But large areas of these forests have been and continue to be destroyed, and with them go the monitor’s habitat. Also local people hunt it for meat. The author discusses the ecology and distribution of the monitor and urges that a new national park be created.

The amphibians and reptiles of Luzon Island, Philippines, VIII: the herpetofauna of Cagayan and Isabela Provinces, northern Sierra Madre Mountain Range

“…This hypothesized barrier divides northern Aurora Province from southern Isabela Province (Fig. 71) and may have served as an ecological or physical barrier to dispersal, possibly promoting divergence between Varanus bitatawa and its closest relative, Varanus olivaceus , (Auffenberg 1976, 1979, 1988) from Bulacan and Quezon Provinces, Polillo, and Catanduañes islands, and the Bicol faunal region. Our new records from barangays Magrafil and Santa Clara (Figs 69, 70), Municipality of Gonzaga, are the northernmost records for this species (Welton et al 2012).…”

Diet and arboreality in the emerald monitor, Varanus prasinus : with comments on the study of adaptation : a contribution in celebration of the distinguished scholarship of Robert F. Inger on the occasion of his sixty-fifth birthday

“…Several species are known to eat vertebrates (e.g., Cowles, 1930; King & Green, 1979;Auffenberg, 1981;Pianka, 1982); others eat insects (e.g., Pianka, 1970); and one might be largely a frugivore (Auffenberg, 1979). Popular literature and morphological studies abound with statements that particular features of varanids are adaptations for feeding on large prey, despite the fact that very little evidence supports this point and some contradicts it (Greene, 1982;Auffenberg &Ipe, 1983).…”