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COMMON NAME: Mertens' Water
Monitor
SCIENTIFIC NAME: Varanus mertensi Glauert
FAMILY: Varanidae
GENUS: Varanus
STATUS: Secure
SIZE (cm): 110 |
DESCRIPTION: Moderately large monitor; tail long and
extremely laterally compressed, bearing double- keeled vertebral ridge.
Ground colour dark olive-brown to olive-grey marked with numerous very
small dark-edged pale grey to pale yellow spots on body, limbs and base
of tail. Lips and side of neck yellowish brown. Lips barred indistinctly
with brown.
PREFERRED HABITAT: Margins of watercourses, swamps
and lagoons in far northern Australia, from Kimberley region, WA,
to far northern Qld.
MICROHABITAT: Usually encountered along water's
edge, especially among roots of trees along bank. Basks on overhanging
branches or partly submerged rocks and timber.
AVAILABILITY: Click
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