Endangered
Peacock monitor
Varanus auffenbergi
Peacock monitor is a lizard or snake in the family Varanidae — Varanus auffenbergi, recorded as Endangered.
Appearance
It is similar to the Timor monitor (V. Timorensis), with some differentiation in the underside coloring and patterns. The coloring patterns fade as these lizards reach adulthood. The peacock monitor has blue-grey ocelli, whereas the Timor monitor has cream-colored ocelli.
The peacock monitor is one of the smaller monitor lizards, usually reaching a length of 60 cm (23.5 in).
Range and habitat
The species, that belongs to the subgenus Odatria, is endemic to Rote Island, Indonesia.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Habits
In the wild, peacock monitors have been seen climbing the trunks of palms and then basking on the crowns of the trees.
In crisis
Peacock monitor is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Peacock monitor, Wikidata item Q759660. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
