Giant lizard species discovered in the Philippines

Another in the list of large animals still being discovered.

Source

A new species of giant lizard has been discovered in the Philippines.

The 2m-long reptile is a monitor lizard, the group to which the world's longest and largest lizards belong.

The monitor, described as spectacular by the scientists who found it, lives in forests covering the Sierra Madre mountains in the north of the country.

It never ceases to amaze me how we can still discover new species just as large as we are, and at 2m this new monitor could certainly be considered "human" sized.

Grats to Dr. Brown, and his team of colleagues for bringing this new species to light.

Amazing! Just goes to show there is still more to this planet we call home that we do not know about. Looking at the pics, it is easy to see it's relation to the Komodo dragon.

Of course the locals have known about this for a long time, so I can't help but wonder if we would devote more time to "listening" to what the local people have to say instead of looking down on them, how much more we would learn.

Thanks for bringing this to our attention.

reply to post by Wayne60


Good point about listening to "locals", and much of cryptozoology is based in local folklore. The re-discovery of the Coelacanth is a good example, that pops to mind, of modern science catching up with local fishermens' tales.

The part that's especially surprising to me is that, according to the article, there was apparently no shortage of biologists in the area as well.

Why the new massive lizard has remained undiscovered by scientists until now is a mystery, especially as many biologists work in the northern Philippines.

Kinda makes me wonder what all our biologists and park rangers could still be missing...

Yeah we get monitors over 2m here in oz, exept their called goannas. I saw a Perentie (the largest) one time in the bush I came round a tree and on the otherside it was clinging to I caught it out of the corner of my eye then turned left and there it was about 30cm from my face scared the hell out of me, almost looked like a mini dinosaur. They are beutifull animals, yet it looked like it could down a cat for lunch.

No wonder it hasn't been found till now, just have a look at its camouflage, beautiful yet very tricky. I guess it's very hard to find with lots of vegetation around. Cool find

reply to post by redmage



Just think, by the time we've finished the deforestation of out planet we will have a complete record of all the creatures that lived on it.

We are such a clever species.

Nice find... It is amazing to think that as everything in the world seems to get smaller and smaller, we are still finding things like this that we have missed... S&F!!!

Originally posted by Wayne60
Amazing! Just goes to show there is still more to this planet we call home that we do not know about. Looking at the pics, it is easy to see it's relation to the Komodo dragon.

Of course the locals have known about this for a long time, so I can't help but wonder if we would devote more time to "listening" to what the local people have to say instead of looking down on them, how much more we would learn.

Thanks for bringing this to our attention.

Exactly! It looks JUST like a Komodo dragon. EXACTLY. Except for the color of the scales.

Here is a photo i took of a Komodo dragon.. if you do a side by side it's insane.

www.flickr.com...

reply to post by BeastMaster2012


really? I would say it looks more like a type of water monitor(complex) .

anyway wasn't it originally just assumed it was a species/subspecies of a known animal, its not like the Philippines is lacking in varanus species, its only now its been formally studied and then it was realised its a new species new species.

God that BBC articles misleading as well, its makes it sound like this new species (and grey's monitor) completely frugivorous not omnivorous