Coming from the UK where our reptiles are rarely thicker than a USB cable and only fearsome if you happen to be the size of a fruit fly, one common denizen of Singapore’s wonderful Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve (which I was fortunate to visit last week) that never fails to fascinate me is the Asian Water Monitor Varanus salvator. A muscly, thick-set crocodile-like lizard that ranges across the Asian subcontinent from India to China, and from Indonesia and the Philippines, to New Guinea islands in the Indian Ocean and South China Sea, an adult Asian Water Monitor can reach five-feet in length, has shoulders like a Tongan prop forward and is equipped with jaws that could chew through the sides of a house. Anyone brought up with the sensationalist version of the natural world perpetuated by the likes of the Discovery Channel will recognise these stocky beasts from programmes with names like “Killer Reptiles”, “Blood and Gore in the Mangroves”, and “What the hell’s that massive thing in the undergrowth?”…

Looks, though, can (as we all know) be deceiving. Whilst I wouldn’t recommend anyone try to pat this leathery-skinned beast on its broad head, Asian Water Monitors would much prefer to amble out of the way than stand and fight, and more often than not the first you realise that you’ve just walked past one is when you hear a loud splash as it dives into the water. Yes, you wouldn’t want to be a crab, mollusc, or snake (or an egg, fish, bird, rodent, mouse deer, or even a small monitor lizard) when a four-foot long Monitor is hungry and has decided you’re on the menu, but like most animals on the planet they’re not interested in us and would prefer we weren’t interested in them.

No doubt if you live in Asia you’ll know someone who claims a close encounter with a Monitor, but of the hundreds I’ve seen none has ever so much as bared its teeth at me - which is a good thing as their saliva is packed with pathogens that cause serious infection if they do get hold of you. (Actually, if there’s one thing the Discovery Channel did teach me it’s to avoid the bite of a Komodo Dragon (the world’s largest Monitor lizard): the bite itself may not be fatal but the secondary infections will finish you within a few days, at which point the Komodo appears out of the undergrowth and settles down for dinner…in fact on a grisly note both Komodos and Water Monitors have been recorded digging up human corpses to eat. As I’m never likely to go to Comodo let alone get buried there I probably don’t need to worry too much, but sometimes you just want to have that sort of information at hand anyway).

No, most of the time a small Monitor will scuttle away (surprisingly quickly) and a large one will lift its heavy head, wrinkle its nose, flick out its long tongue, and give a sort of sigh as if to say, “Look, neither of us want to bother the other, so how about we just carry on our way without any trouble…” - which suits me just fine. In fact if you’re respectful and move quietly you can (if you want) get some wonderfully close views of these amazing animals. When you do it’s almost impossible not to have words like “primeval”, “dinosaur”, and “wow, that’s big” pop into your head.

They’re thrilling close-up and produce a visceral reaction that many of us suburbanites are unused to feeling, but almost inevitably Monitor Lizards are not always treated very well where do they overlap with us humans. They are commonly hunted for their meat and skin and have been extirpated over most of mainland India. Habitat destruction affects them of course, and (according to http://www.naturia.per.sg/buloh/verts/monitor_lizard.htm) “up to 1.5 million skins are legally exported each year mainly from Indonesia to Europe, Japan and the US to be made into fashion goods…[and] a bewildering array of potions are made from various parts of their bodies, ranging from cures for diabetes to aphrodisiacs and deadly poisons used in assassinations. The gall bladder is brewed for a medicinal tea to treat heart and liver problems. Skin ointments are made from the rendered fat.”

Monitor Lizard tea? That’s kind, but not for me thanks. I’ll stick to my Fairtrade Clipper teabags and look after my heart in other ways…

All photos copyright Charlie Moores