Beautiful red monitor lizard

Short video of a monitor lizard with beautiful deep crayon red colouring on its back. Found at the Berjaya Resort on Tioman Island.

EDIT: A couple of commenters have brought it up that the red is not natural. Best guess is that it was spraypainted. I do remember the colour looking very waxy which YouTube quality video can't show. Why was this done? Possibly this specific individual is a troublemaker and makes it easy to identify.

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• red
• monitor
• lizard
• Tioman
• reptile
• rare
• unusual

[Djebulba]

OMG i want one !!! how much did you pay for him,and what specie is that ans please?!

[Vastad]

Check out the comments from other visitors. They've suggested Water Monitor or Clouded Monitor (varanus nebulosus).

Red coloring might be paint. It didn't look like paint to me at the time.

[varanidguy]

holy crap, what species is that?

[Vastad]

Hey cool. You're user name is based on their genus. =)

I did a very basic search on Wikipedia and Wikispecies but not all entries have pictures. So no luck narrowing down the species.

My personal guess is that its not some unknown species but just a colour variant of an established one, kind of like redheads among humans.

If you know your stuff you should look through species restricted to South East Asia, tolerates both salt and freshwater. This guy was only 3 1/2 feet long. Hope that helps.

[varanidguy]

hey thanks. hmm...sounds like maybe a jobiensis or indicus, but i'm unaware of any "red phase" floating around. maybe a rusty water monitor? i dunno...i'll have to do a little bit of research. gorgeous lizard though.

[Vastad]

You're welcome. It was a very waxy crayon red, which the YouTube doesn't do justice to. Definitely beautiful.

[Reptillllei555]

before you impulsivly by a baby varanid (monitor species) please do reasearch and make sure you can provide the proper space, heating and most importantly food!

[roseponcho]

OMG!!!!! A wild Charmander appeared from the tall grass!

[reptileking334]

Beutiful, if real

[flygon47319]

simply nice for a reptile :)

[zeromarch24]

haaah clearly fuckin edited

[chokolate999]

yeah your right, my mistake bro

[mow6]

Definately not prasinus. notice how short is the tail. Arboreals have way longer tail and much slender body.

[mow6]

It's a tioman locality variant of a clouded monitor(varanus nebulosus). Theres' lots of em around everywhere in Tioman. There are also waters(salvator). but this is definately a clouded. I dun know bout the red coloring tho. i'll stay reserved on that.