Reptilia · Squamata
Varanus salvadoriiPeters & Doria, 1878
Crocodile Monitor
Identification not confirmed. One observer recorded this animal as this species and no one has since agreed, so the photograph may show a different animal.
Photograph placed in the public domain, CC0, via iNaturalist
A day-active, meat-eating monitor lizard from the Australo-Pacific region, reaching 850 mm snout to vent.
Reptilia › Squamata › Varanidae › Varanus
- Grows to
- 850mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 25years
Longer than 92% 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
38 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
- 2014
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 25years
Slavens and Slavens 1999 (7.6), over 20 in captivity (Bennett 1995), 18 (Mendyk 2015), "The oldest female crocodile monitor to have lived in an AZA institution was estimated to be a little over 21 years old at her death (Reeves 2019)...The oldest male crocodile monitor to have lived in an AZA institution was estimated to be a little over 25 years old at his death (Reeves 2019)." (Reh et al. 2021)
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 850mm2 ft 9 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 523.7mm20.5 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 140mm5.5 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 115mm4.5 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 14,985g33 lb
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 2904g6.4 lb
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 55.9g2 oz
max 850 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
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Sit and wait
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Arboreal, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Active season · months of the year
- 12months
- Region
- Australo-Pacific
- Mainland or island
- Found only on islands
- Elevation · above sea level
- 650–1560m
- Range size
- 505,213km²
vertebrates, invertebrates and carrion (lizards, frogs and arthropods, Losos and Greene 1988) / birds and eggs (Mays 2007), birds eggs and mammals (Bennett 1995), insects and, mainly, vertebrates (Auliya and Koch 2020, Black 1983)
Sit and Wait
e.g., Auliya and Koch 2020, Black 1983, see also Reh and Thomas 2022
Semi Arboreal / mostly arboreal (Philipp and Philipp 2007, Auliya and Koch 2020), terrestrial and arboreal (Black 1983), mainly arboreal (Reh and Thomas 2022)
650 m (Reh et al. 2021), 1552 (Reh and Thomas 2022)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Sex decided by
- Genes, ZW/ZZ
- Average clutch
- 6.8eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 4–12eggs
- Mean clutch
- 6.5–7.1eggs
- Clutches a year
- 1–3per year
- First breeds at
- 36months
e.g., Yufek 2012, max 12 (Bennett 1995), 4-12, mean 7 (Auliya and Koch 2020), 4-12 (Reh et al. 2021)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Anguimoprha
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Peters & Doria
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1878
- Type locality
- Indonesia
Keeping one
11 ft 2 in × 11 ft 2 in × 11 ft 2 in(340 × 340 × 340 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 2 ft 9 in (850 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 Crocodile 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.
1010kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 14,985 g, the heaviest recorded for Crocodile 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 female mean
- — 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
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — 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
- — 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
- — Population trend
- — Red List criteria
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
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 salvadorii. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/varanus-salvadorii
@misc{varanus_salvadorii_2026,
title = {Varanus salvadorii},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/varanus-salvadorii}
}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.