REPTILIA: SQUAMATA: VARANIDAE: Varanus

Varanus prasinus (Schlegel, 1839)

Green tree monitor

Photos & text by Dr. Robert Sprackland.

Range: New Guinea and adjacent islands; absent from New Britain.

Diagnosis: A readily identified species, the green monitor is an elongate, long-tailed monitor with a predominantly green body.

Description:  

Natural History: This is a very active, almost exclusively arboreal animal. Their color and variable pattern provide excellent camouflage in the rainforest.  

Reproduction: Lays eggs.

Taxonomy & Relationships: Green tree monitors and their allies are often placed in the subgenus Euprepiosaurus Fitzinger, and includes the black tree monitors, yellow monitors, and mangrove monitors.

Two subspecies were long recognized (Varanus p. prasinus and V. p. kordensis), but it has been demonstrated (Sprackland, 1991) that all the characters that were used to distinguish the subspecies were randomly distributed, and thus represent variation, not subspecies.  Click her to see original published color plate by Müller and Schlegel.

Variation:

Additional Comments: Common in southern New Guinea forests. In the Bine language of southern Western Province this species is known as "pasi" ("pah-see").

Type Specimen: RMNH

 Literature: click on book to order a copy.

Sprackland, Robert. 1992. Giant Lizards. TFH Publications. ISBN: 0-86622-634-6.

Sprackland, Robert. 1999. The emerald monitor. Reptile & Amphibian Hobbyist July--4(11): 8-16.