Bengal Monitor

The Bengal monitor, or Indian monitor, is among the most widely distributed monitor lizards, ranging from Iran to Java. It can reach 175 cm, with a snout-vent length of 75 cm and a tail of 100 cm, and heavy individuals weigh nearly 7.2 kg. Males are generally larger. Young monitors are more colourful, with dark crossbars on the neck, throat and back and yellow spots on the back. Adults become light brown or grey with a speckled look. Monitors in India and Sri Lanka were once treated as one species with those of Myanmar; the eastern clouded monitor is now considered separate (Wikipedia, general species account).

It is usually solitary and mostly ground-living, though the young are often in trees, and it shelters in burrows it digs or in crevices in rocks and buildings. It is diurnal, shy and wary of people. It is a generalist feeder: beetles and larvae, and for larger animals frogs and their eggs, fish, lizards, snakes, rats, squirrels, hares and birds. The main breeding season is June to September, and females dig a nest hole and lay about 20 eggs that hatch after 168 to 254 days. Nationally Least Concern (Sri Lanka National Red List 2012).