A desert monitor is a big lizard, that would remind you of legendary dragons, and would command an instinctive respect to itself. It is quite common on the vast plains of the Central Asia. Its body weight reaches 3 kg and it grows to one and a half meters long.
Beside the Central Asian Republics and Kazakhstan, the desert monitors may be found in North Africa and South-East Asia.
It mainly inhabits sand deserts and is very well-adapted to harsh environments.
A desert monitor’s primary color is brownish with cross-wise stripes which makes it barely visible in the desert environment. Often its color changes to match the color of the local sand or soil.
A desert monitor is a daylight animal. Every year females as old as four years or older lay up to 20 eggs into their burrows. Hatched baby monitors crawl up to the surface only after hibernation. They are left completely to themselves and of course not all of them survive their first, the most severe year. The desert monitor’s lifespan is around 10 years.
There are many kinds of tales and unbelievable stories related to this wonderful lizard. For instance, it is said that it can break even a big dog’s leg with its tail and bite off a human finger with its sharp teeth.
The Uzbek name for a desert monitor is echkemar which means “a creature sucking the goat milk”. It is probably associated with yet another old belief that this lizard comes at nights to barns, wraps its tail around goat’s legs and drinks its milk.
The English name the monitor lizard does exactly correspond to its lifestyle. Roaming regularly through colonies of rodents, it eats not only inhabitants who lost caution, but any living creature within its grasp: birds, smaller lizards, snakes, insects and sometimes hares, hedgehogs and turtles.
Being a terror to all small desert inhabitants, monitor themselves, especially young ones, may become a bigger predators’ lunch: birds of prey and foxes are their enemies. When feeling danger, the lizard hisses threateningly, expands its body in a deep breath strikes with its tail, lashing with it from side to side. Its numerous small teeth are well suited for holding its catch. Males often put their teeth to use during mating season fights. However, desert monitors prefer to retreat when encounter humans.
These lizards can remain in hibernation in their burrows for as long as one and a half year. In cooler weather, in spring and autumn, they are not as fast as they are under hot summer sun, when they may demonstrate unexpected vigor and sprint short distances at amazing speed.
Desert monitors can easily climb up smaller trees, enter various burrows, enlarging them if necessary.
In the 20th century desert monitor leather items came into fashion, these reptiles became the hunting target and were killed by the tens of thousands. This resulted in a sharp drop in their numbers in the wild, and in some areas they became extinct. The situation was aggravated by cultivation of lands which were the habitat of this animal. Nowadays the desert monitor species is included in The Red Book of the International Union of Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and national Red Books of countries where this animal is still found. The wildlife explorers may see this unusual lizard in Tashkent Zoo or by taking an adventurous trip to Central Asian deserts.
Alexander Yesipov,
Helen Bykova
Photo by Alexander Yesipov
