Monitor Lizard bears a striking appearance with elongated head, usually long neck and tail, and snake-like tongue. All the thirty existing species are so similar that they are included in a single genus Varanus, in a range from Africa, throughout Southeast Asia to Australia. Monitor Lizard is world`s heaviest and largest lizard. The Komodo dragon of Indonesia grows to a length of over three metres and may weigh two hundred kilograms.

Despite the massive body, Monitor Lizard is surprisingly a good runner and swimmer. The smaller one is excellent climber. The long, forked tongue is employed as a sensory organ. They hiss loudly in defence and lash with their powerful tails. They are all carnivorous and feed on a wide variety of prey including insects, crabs, molluscs, rodents, birds and carrion. They are particularly fond of eggs, in search of which they may raid bird, turtle and powerful teeth and jaws and swallowed whole or in large chunks. The female lays about fifteen to thirty eggs and deposits them in termite moulds, holes in the ground, hollow logs or piles of brush. Though the eggs of the common monitor may hatch in two months, water monitor eggs may incubate for nine months.

Of the four species occurring in India, only common Monitor Varanus bengalensis is widely distributed. It is found in forest areas as well as the outskirts of villages and suburbs. The yellow monitor lizard, V.flavescens of North India and Bangladesh, is a stocky species common in Bihar. The desert monitor lives in the arid and rocky areas of Africa, Pakistan and north-west India. It is greyish yellow in keeping with the sandy soil. The water monitor, V.salvator, occurring in Sri Lanka and the coastal mangrove regions of Orissa, Sundarbans Freshwater Swamp Forests in India, and the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, is the larges lizard of India, reaching a length of about 2.5 centimetres. It is blackish above with yellow rings, and white below.

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