Reptilia · Squamata
Varanus griseusDaudin, 1803
Desert Monitor
Photograph placed in the public domain, CC0, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating monitor lizard from the Saharo-Sindian region, reaching 625 mm snout to vent.
Reptilia › Squamata › Varanidae › Varanus
- Grows to
- 625mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 21years
Longer than 76% of all monitor lizards anyone has measured.
The bar is the rank itself: its length is the share of the family this animal exceeds. The chart below is the family’s real spread, on a logarithmic scale because body length here runs from 116.4 to 1,570 mm. The solid rule is this animal. Every bar is a count of real species, and nothing on this figure is estimated.
What is known
46 sourced facts, each taken from a named scientific dataset. How to read these.
Cited from a dataset unless a row is marked otherwise.
Standing in the world
- Still living
- Extant
- Conservation status
- Least Concern
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2016
- Population trend
- Decreasing
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 21years
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 37.3°C99 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 36.1–38.5°C97–101 °F
17 in captivity (Werner, according to Hughes 1988), Schleich et al. 1996 and Slavens and Slavens 1999, Castanet 1994, >20 in captivity (Amitai and Bouskila 2001); Petzold 2008: 17 in TAUZ; 17 in captivity, 14 in nature (Werner 2016), 20 (Mendyk 2015)
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 625mm2 ft 1 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 354.8mm14 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 354.8mm14 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 101.6mm4 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 101.6mm4 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 5542.1g12 lb
- Body mass · a typical adult
- 821.1g1.8 lb
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 3875g8.5 lb
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 17g0.6 oz
max 625 mm SVL (Feldman et al. 2016)
snout-vent length; the source column mixes this with straight carapace length
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
AnAge rates this record "acceptable"
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Active foraging
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Desert, Shrubland
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Active season · months of the year
- 6–11months
- Region
- Saharo-Sindian
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1300m
- Range size
- 17,980,246km²
- Density
- 0.01–0.37per hectare
- Home range · largest recorded
- 16,058,000m2
vertebrates and insects (including Uromastyx aegyptia, Jongbloed 2000) / lizards (Losos and Greene 1988), "V. griseus feeds on reptiles, rodents, and birds; V. g. koniecznyi mainly eats insects (beetles), along with lizards, snakes, and eggs" (Auliya and Koch 2020), mammals, birds, bird eggs and reptiles (del Marmol et al. 2019)
(e.g., Joshi et al. 2021, Spawls et al. 2023), "very active" (Carranza et al. 2021)
e.g., Masood and Asiry 2012, del Marmol et al. 2019, Joshi et al. 2021, Carranza et al. 2021, Spawls et al. 2023
e.g., Joshi et al. 2021, Spawls et al. 2023
80-800 (Showler 2018), 0-1300 (del Marmol et al. 2019), 0-600 (Carranza et al. 2021), max 1200 (Spawls et al. 2023)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 15.75eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 2–34eggs
- Mean clutch
- 8.7–21eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 0.67per year
- Clutches a year
- 0.33–1per year
- First breeds at
- 24–60months
- Age at first breeding · female
- 1644days
5-20 (Bar and Haimovitch 2012, del Marmol et al. 2019, Spawls et al. 2023), Ataev et al. 1994: 15-34, mean 18.1 (Du et al. 2014), 6-23 (Szczerbak 2003), 17-18 (TAU experimental zoo data), 2-34 depending on subspecies (Auliya and Koch 2020, smallest mean 8.7), 5-25 (Carranza et al. 2021)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Anguimoprha
- Subspecies
- Varanus griseus griseus (DAUDIN 1803) Varanus griseus caspius (EICHWALD 1831) Varanus griseus koniecznyi MERTENS 1954
- Described by
- Daudin
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1803
- Type locality
- Turkmenistan
Keeping one
8 ft 2 in × 8 ft 2 in × 5 ft 2 in(250 × 250 × 156 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better.
The standard sizes ground-dwelling species at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times snout-vent length.
Mindestanforderungen an die Haltung von Reptilien (Sachverständigengutachten), German Federal Ministry for Nutrition, Agriculture and Forestry, Animal Welfare Division, 10 January 1997. The standard states these floor areas are recommendations rather than binding limits.
From this animal’s own snout-vent length of 2 ft 1 in (625 mm), at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
Active animals measured in the wild averaged 99 °F (37.3 °C).
Mean body temperature of active individuals measured in nature. A measurement of the animal, not a setting for a thermostat.
Feeding
A prey item should be no wider than the space between the animal's eyes.
Widely used across reptile husbandry references. The stated reason is that the gap approximates the width of the throat, so wider prey is associated with impaction. This is established practice, not a measurement.
417kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 5,542 g, the heaviest recorded for Desert Monitor — so it is the top of the range, not a figure for a particular animal. Weigh yours and the number will be lower.
An upper estimate, not a feeding target, and not veterinary advice. The equation covers only what an animal burns staying alive, so a growing, gravid or recovering animal needs more — and it was measured on wild animals, which move far more than one in an enclosure. Body condition and a vet who knows the species are what a feeding decision should rest on. Where this comes from.
What nobody knows
These are not gaps in our research. No scientific dataset records them for this species — and saying so is information you cannot get from a reference that simply leaves a field out.
- — Length snout to vent · adult male mean
- — Length snout to vent · adult mean
- — Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- — Female length · mean, nose to tail
- — Length nose to tail · adult male mean
- — Length nose to tail · adult mean
- — Largest male · snout to vent
- — Largest female · shell length
- — Largest male · shell length
- — Hatchling length · nose to tail
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Hatchling length · smallest recorded
- — Hatchling length · largest recorded
- — Mature from · youngest recorded
- — Mature by · oldest recorded
- — Size at maturity · smallest recorded
- — Size at maturity · largest recorded
- — Venomous
- — Colour on the back
- — Pattern on the back
- — Pupil
- — Sex decided by
- — Red List criteria
- — Active in
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
Others in Varanidae
Take this data
Everything on this page is available as data under CC BY 4.0 — use it freely, credit it, no permission needed.
This species as JSON · the whole dataset
Cite this page
The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia (2026). Varanus griseus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/varanus-griseus
@misc{varanus_griseus_2026,
title = {Varanus griseus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/varanus-griseus}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- AnAge, Human Ageing Genomic Resources (de Magalhães et al.), used under CC BY 3.0.
- Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.
- Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.