Reptilia · Squamata
Varanus variusShaw, 1790
Lace Monitor
Photograph by Tim, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A day-active, meat-eating monitor lizard from the Australo-Pacific region, reaching 765 mm snout to vent.
Reptilia › Squamata › Varanidae › Varanus
- Grows to
- 765mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 22years
Longer than 86% 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
- 2017
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 22years
- Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradientmeasured
- 35°C
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 34.85°C95 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 34.2–35.5°C94–96 °F
Carey and Judge 2000, De Magalhaes & Costa 2009, Slavens and Slavens 1999: 14 and 8 months, Greer 2005, Greer 1989: individual caught as adult lived for 15 years, 7 months, so as it matures in 4-7 years it would be 20, over 15 (Bennett 1995), 21+ (Mendyk 2015), over 20 in captivity (Robertson and Coventry 2019)
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 765mm2 ft 6 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 472.5mm18.5 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 472.5mm18.5 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 105mm4.25 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 105mm4.25 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 10,657g23 lb
- Body mass · a typical adult
- 4300g9.5 lb
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 1867g4.1 lb
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 23.7g0.84 oz
max 765 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
- Arboreal, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest
- Biome
- Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests
- Active season · months of the year
- 8months
- Region
- Australo-Pacific
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 90–800m
- Range size
- 1,219,353km²
- Home range · largest recorded
- 3,870,000m2
Arthropods, vertebrates (mammals including macropodids, fox cubs, rabbits, reptiles and birds), eggs and carrion, a recorded case of berry eating (Greer 1989 p199), everything: mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, arthropods and garbage (Weaver 1989), Carrion (Swan et al. 2017), see also Bennett 1995, mammals, birds, reptiles and arthropods (Robertson and Coventry 2019), invertebrates and vertebrates (Auliya and Koch 2020), "Keystone predators and dietary generalists" (Pettit et al. 2021)
Active foraging
(e.g., Swan et al. 2017, Swan 2020, Auliya and Koch 2020), heliothermic (Robertson and Coventry 2019)
Terrestrial and Arboreal (e.g., Auliya and Koch 2020)/Arboreal (Swan et al. 2017, Swan 2020)/semi arboreal (Robertson and Coventry 2019)
500-600 (Pengilley 1972)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Sex decided by
- Genes, ZW/ZZ
- Average clutch
- 7.55eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 2–19eggs
- Mean clutch
- 5.4–9.7eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 2per year
- Clutches a year
- 1–3per year
- First breeds at
- 48–84months
mean 5.7 (Du et al. 2014), mean 8, max 19 "removed from a termite mound" (Bennett 1995), 4-19 (Robertson and Coventry 2019)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Anguimoprha
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Shaw
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1790
- Type locality
- Australia
Keeping one
10 ft × 10 ft × 10 ft(306 × 306 × 306 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 6 in (765 mm), at 4 × 4 × 4 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
In a laboratory thermal gradient this species settled at 95 °F (35 °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.
746kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 10,657 g, the heaviest recorded for Lace 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
- — Red List criteria
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest 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 varius. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/varanus-varius
@misc{varanus_varius_2026,
title = {Varanus varius},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/varanus-varius}
}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.