Reptilia · Squamata
Varanus salvatorLaurenti, 1768
Common Water Monitor
Photograph by Martin Gutewort, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A day-active, meat-eating monitor lizard from the Oriental region, reaching 117 cm snout to vent.
Reptilia › Squamata › Varanidae › Varanus
- Grows to
- 1170mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 54years
Longer than 98% 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
45 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
- 2018
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 54years
- Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradientmeasured
- 35.6°C
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 29.5°C85 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 27–32°C81–90 °F
Carey and Judge 2000, De Magalhaes & Costa 2009, Honegger 1969, Slavens and Slavens 1999: 15 and 8 months, Pianka and King 2004: 10 and 8 months, 54 (Mendyk 2015),
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 1170mm3 ft 10 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 657mm2 ft 2 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 499.5mm19.5 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 124.5mm5 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 124.5mm5 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 42,129g93 lb
- Body mass · a typical adult
- 4345g9.6 lb
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 32,283g71 lb
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 41.5g1.5 oz
max 1170 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
- Semi-aquatic
- Habitat
- Forest, Shrubland, Wetlands
- 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
- 1000m
- Range size
- 4,677,845km²
- Home range · largest recorded
- 700,000m2
invertebrates and vertebrates and carrion (e.g., Auliya and Koch 2020), Grandison 1972 discusses a 4 pound juvenile that ate a mouse deer, fishes (Mazumder et al. 2020)
Active foraging
(e.g., Mazumder et al. 2020, Auliya and Koch 2020, Yang and Chan 2020) but reported active at night (Auliya and Koch 2020)
Semi Aquatic, Arboreal and Terrestrial (e.g., Mazumder et al. 2020), semi aquatic and terrestrial juveniles more arboreal (Auliya and Koch 2020)
coastal (Auliya and Koch 2020), 40-570 in Hainan (Yang and Chan 2020), mainly below 1800, usually below 1000 (Jenssen and Sy 2022)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Sex decided by
- Genes, ZW/ZZ
- Average clutch
- 10.65eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–40eggs
- Mean clutch
- 4.2–17.1eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 2per year
- Clutches a year
- 1–3per year
- First breeds at
- 24–36months
2-10, mean 4.2 (Mendyk 2011), 10-23 mean 17.1 (Du et al. 2014), 5-30 (Setyawatiningsih et al. 2016), 10-20 (de Silva and Ukuwela 2017), 5-24 mean 14-17 (Auliya and Koch 2020), 5-40 (Jenssen and Sy 2022)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Anguimoprha
- Subspecies
- Varanus salvator salvator (LAURENTI 1768) Varanus salvator andamanensis DERANIYAGALA 1944 Varanus salvator bivittatus (KUHL 1820) Varanus salvator celebensis (SCHLEGEL 1844) Varanus salvator macromaculatus DERANIYAGALA 1944 Varanus salvator ziegleri KOCH & BÖHME 2010
- Described by
- Laurenti
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1768
- Type locality
- Sri Lanka
Keeping one
15 ft 4 in × 15 ft 4 in × 9 ft 7 in(468 × 468 × 293 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 3 ft 10 in (1170 mm), at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
In a laboratory thermal gradient this species settled at 96 °F (35.6 °C).
Preferred body temperature, recorded in a laboratory gradient where the animal could choose freely. 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.
2532kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 42,129 g, the heaviest recorded for Common Water 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
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — 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
- — Colour on the back
- — Pattern on the back
- — Pupil
- — Population trend
- — Red List criteria
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest 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 salvator. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/varanus-salvator
@misc{varanus_salvator_2026,
title = {Varanus salvator},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/varanus-salvator}
}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.
- AnAge, Human Ageing Genomic Resources (de Magalhães et al.), used under CC BY 3.0.