Reptilia · Squamata
Varanus timorensisGray, 1831
Pin-spot monitor
Photograph by dhfischer, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A day-active, meat-eating monitor lizard from the Oriental region, reaching 285 mm snout to vent.
Also called Auffenberg’s Monitor, Peacock monitor, Spotted Tree Monitor.
Reptilia › Squamata › Varanidae › Varanus
- Grows to
- 285mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 17.6years
Longer than only 25% 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
- 2019
- Population trend
- Decreasing
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 17.6years
Carey and Judge 2000, De Magalhaes & Costa 2009, Slavens and Slavens 1999: 14 and 11 months, 17.6 (Mendyk 2015)
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 285mm11 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 207.5mm8.25 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 60.4mm2.5 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 60.4mm2.5 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 436.9g15.4 oz
- Body mass · a typical adult
- 290g10.2 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 16.4g0.58 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 4.5g0.16 oz
max 285 mm SVL (Feldman et al. 2016)
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
AnAge rates this record "acceptable"
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Sit and wait
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Arboreal, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Dry Broadleaf Forests
- Region
- Oriental
- Mainland or island
- Found only on islands
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 700m
- Range size
- 28,858km²
invertebrates and reptiles (e.g., Arbuckle 2009, Jenssen and Sy 2022), "diet consists of other reptiles (geckoes and small snakes) and invertebrates such as scorpions, orthopterans, spiders, mantids, bees and roaches (Schmutz & Horn 1986; Losos & Green 1888; King 1993)." (Bennett 1995), arthropods, ocasionally lizards and snakes (Auliya and Koch 2020), Cannibalism (Ariad et al. 2023)
Sit and Wait
e.g., Auliya and Koch 2020
Arboreal and Terrestrial (e.g., Auliya and Koch 2020)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 7.95eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 2–14eggs
- Mean clutch
- 6.9–9eggs
- Clutches a year
- 1per year
- First breeds at
- 12months
mean 7.4 (Du et al. 2014), max 11 (Bennett 1995), 5-13 (Auliya and Koch 2020), 3-14 (Arida et al. 2023)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Anguimoprha
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Gray
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1831
- Type locality
- Indonesia
Keeping one
3 ft 9 in × 3 ft 9 in × 3 ft 9 in(114 × 114 × 114 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 11 in (285 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 Pin-spot 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.
44kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 437 g, the heaviest recorded for Pin-spot 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
- — 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
- — Sex decided by
- — Red List criteria
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — 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 timorensis. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/varanus-timorensis
@misc{varanus_timorensis_2026,
title = {Varanus timorensis},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/varanus-timorensis}
}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.