Animal · Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia
Nile monitor
Varanus niloticus — the name this animal has in the language scientists everywhere share.
The Nile monitor is the longest lizard in Africa, a strong swimmer that grows to two metres and flicks out a long forked tongue to taste the air. It lives along rivers and lakes and eats almost anything it can catch.
Picture credit: Charles J. Sharp (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Charles J. Sharp (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Charles J. Sharp (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where does the Nile monitor live?
Home: Riverbanks, lakes and swamps across Africa.
In the wild it lives in these countries: Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria, South Africa.
Conservation status from the IUCN: not in danger.
The short profile
Fully grown: usually 1.2-2 m long, rarely up to 2.4 m. It weighs about 8 kilograms. On the menu: meat.
The story behind it
A Nile monitor is never far from water. It swims with its tail pressed flat from side to side like an oar, and when it is startled on a branch it simply drops into the river below. Its menu is enormous: fish, frogs, crabs, snails, mice, birds and eggs, including those it digs out of crocodile nests. The forked tongue collects tiny scent particles from the air and delivers them to a sense organ in the roof of the mouth, which is how the lizard tracks a meal it cannot see. Females often dig into a termite mound to lay twenty to sixty eggs, where the warm, damp nest keeps them safe for months. Escaped pets have built up wild populations in Florida.
Find it on the globe
Nile monitor is there as a tiny animated figure that breathes and looks around. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.
It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.
Questions children ask
How big does a Nile monitor get?
Most adults are between 1.2 and 2 metres long, with the tail making up more than half of that. The very largest ones reach about 2.4 metres, which makes this the longest lizard in Africa.
Is the Nile monitor dangerous to people?
It does not hunt people and almost always escapes into the water when someone comes close. Cornered, though, it defends itself: it hisses, lashes with its heavy tail, scratches with sharp claws and can bite hard.
What does a Nile monitor eat?
Almost anything of the right size: fish, frogs, crabs, snails, insects, mice, birds and eggs. It is well known for raiding crocodile nests, and it also feeds on animals that are already dead.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
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