Reptilia · Squamata
Varanus rudicollisGray, 1845
Roughneck Monitor
Photograph by Kai Squires, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A day-active, meat-eating monitor lizard from the Oriental region, reaching 590 mm snout to vent.
Reptilia › Squamata › Varanidae › Varanus
- Grows to
- 590mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 18.8years
Longer than 71% 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
35 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
- Data Deficient
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2017
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 18.8years
Mendyk 2015 (18.8)
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 590mm23 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 450.5mm17.5 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 109.5mm4.25 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 103mm4 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 4599.5g10 lb
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 17.8g0.63 oz
max 590 mm SVL (Feldman et al. 2016)
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Active foraging
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Arboreal, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Active season · months of the year
- 12months
- Region
- Oriental
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1200m
- Range size
- 1,410,449km²
invertebrates, eggs and frogs, fishes and small mammals (Das 2004, Losos and Greene 1988), arthropods (Bennett 1995, Bennett 1993), "generalized diet including ants and termites." (Zug and Mulachy 2019), mainly invertebrates (Auliya and Koch 2020)
Active foraging
e.g., Zug and Mulachy 2019, Auliya and Koch 2020
Terrestrial and Arboreal (e.g., Bennett 1993, Auliya and Koch 2020)/ arboreal (Chan-ard et al. 2015)/largely terrestrial (Zug and Mulachy 2019)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 9.2eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 4–16eggs
- Mean clutch
- 8–10.4eggs
- Clutches a year
- 1–3per year
max 14 (Bennett 1995), 5-14 (Bennett 1993), Auliya and Koch 2020 (max 16 mean 8-10)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Anguimoprha
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Gray
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1845
- Type locality
- Philippines
Keeping one
7 ft 9 in × 7 ft 9 in × 7 ft 9 in(236 × 236 × 236 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better.
The standard sizes ground species at 4 × 4 × 2.5 and climbing species at 4 × 2.5 × 4 times snout-vent length.
Recorded both on the ground and climbing, so this is the larger of the two rules in every dimension.
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 23 in (590 mm), at 4 × 4 × 4 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
No preferred body temperature has been recorded for Roughneck Monitor. Rather than repeat a number from a care sheet, this page leaves it out.
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.
354kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 4,599 g, the heaviest recorded for Roughneck 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 female · snout to vent
- — 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
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — Body mass · adult female, mean
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Clutches in a year
- — First breeds from · youngest recorded
- — First breeds by · oldest recorded
- — Hatchling length · smallest recorded
- — Hatchling length · largest recorded
- — Age at first breeding · female
- — Mature from · youngest recorded
- — Mature by · oldest recorded
- — Size at maturity · smallest recorded
- — Size at maturity · largest recorded
- — Venomous
- — Body temp in the wild · lowest mean recorded
- — Body temp in the wild · highest mean recorded
- — Colour on the back
- — Pattern on the back
- — Pupil
- — Sex decided by
- — Population trend
- — Red List criteria
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — 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 rudicollis. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/varanus-rudicollis
@misc{varanus_rudicollis_2026,
title = {Varanus rudicollis},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/varanus-rudicollis}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- 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.