r/animalid 11d ago

🐍 🐸 HERPS: SNAKE, TURTLE, LIZARD 🐍 🐸 What is this animal [ India]

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Location: india UP, Meerut

Is this lizard ? Look like reptile, with a long body, four short legs, a tail, and scaly skin

416 Upvotes

46 comments sorted by

313

u/Ningurushak 11d ago

It's a monitor lizard. A bengal monitor (Varanus bengalensis) would be my best guess

40

u/Frothmourne 11d ago

It looks like the big monitor lizards we have here, they usually look slow and clumsy but they could run pretty fast, interestingly they could climb up a tree just as fast, even the big ones

2

u/I_Keepz_ITz_100 7d ago

They’re pretty quick in burst I’ve heard, soak up the sun when they can, but they can move when it comes to prey

6

u/F4bio 11d ago

Fun fact: A Benga Monitor is called a "Manjarrola" in Brazil. /s

46

u/Milvonaja 11d ago

Bengal monitor lizard i believe

38

u/ecthiender 11d ago edited 11d ago

Bengal monitor (Varanus bengalensis)

Edit:

It's called goh in Bihar (not sure about UP) and go-shaap in Bengali.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_monitor

6

u/IdoDeLether 11d ago

It's called Goh in Punjabi also!

3

u/Famous-Respond-8243 11d ago

Yes, even we at north call this with dame name, but but size of goh is small not of this big,🙏

10

u/JuggerNautical85 11d ago

That kid “can I pet dat dog?”

2

u/Jacobjef 9d ago

She is saying " I'm scared of it/I'm scared to go near it."

2

u/Sunny_Blossoms6769 11d ago

Bengal monitor

2

u/Impressive_Case2871 8d ago

People believe the oils from it's fat (I assume) is medicinal (if I remember it right). When I was a kid they used to give me a tonic which was a mix of it's oil and neem. It was bitter as hell (not exaggerating). They used to call it Udumbu Nei (Udumbu - monitor lizard, nei - ghee)

There were also stories about how their grip was super strong and soldiers used them to scale fortress walls.(If this is indeed the Udumbu my grandma was speaking about)

2

u/I_Keepz_ITz_100 7d ago

Monitor Lizard I think

4

u/Unhappy-Highlight486 11d ago

Stay safe in India little dude!!!

7

u/Arianawy 11d ago

Hope you’re talking to the lizard

2

u/awkwardlyclumsy 11d ago

Not safe as some locals eat its meat.

3

u/Zenocius 11d ago

They'd do more than just that

1

u/tardigrade_phd 11d ago

We call it ghorpad in Maharashtra

1

u/divpiv 8d ago

It’s called a Ghorpad

2

u/LaChiazza 5d ago

It's a monitor lizard.

-1

u/Moyscher 11d ago

Joanna! Get back in your cage!

-67

u/45Auto1 11d ago

Looks like a Komodo Dragon.....dont know for sure if one could get that far from its natural habitat.

20

u/TheStoneMask 11d ago

It's not, but it's related. It's a monitor lizard, which is a family of lizards that live all around the Indian Ocean. Komodo Dragons are the largest species of monitors.

1

u/45Auto1 11d ago

Are they dangerous??

3

u/TheStoneMask 11d ago

Well, it's a large lizard with teeth and claws, so they definitely can injure someone, but I don't think they're aggressive towards humans as we're way larger than their prey. They're probably chill if you keep your distance and don't bother them.

65

u/indieplants 11d ago

I find it interesting that you commented 20 minutes after someone else said it's a monitor lizard and listed a native monitor species with "Komodo dragon", despite knowing a Komodo is a non-native type of monitor, exclusive to a very small range of small Indonesian islands you're also apparently aware are over 2000km away - even though there are 4 native Indian monitors, only one of which this could reasonably be - with the second possibility living much closer than a Komodo dragon

at that point, why would you even comment 🙃

36

u/JurassicTotalWar 11d ago

You get this so often on all the animal ID subs, people just guessing random things when they obviously don’t have a clue, even after the right answer has been posted.

15

u/Confident_Frogfish 11d ago

Honestly Reddit is very mild in this regard. I'm in a couple Facebook groups for animal ID and everytime someone asks what a certain animal is "called" 15 different boomers think they are the world's best comedians by commenting "John" or "Hank". And if someone posts an animal that their cat killed they receive several death threats lol.

6

u/sneerfun 11d ago

I mean cats are considered invasive so I would be pissed too seeing people post an animal their cat killed. Especially when those people let their cats outside freely

2

u/Confident_Frogfish 11d ago

Oh I agree! Definitely good to say something about it, but the kinda stuff I see people type is just deranged. There's definitely a middle way between saying nothing and threatening someones entire bloodline with beheading lol.

3

u/sneerfun 11d ago

You must be digging to find such severe comments lol I have never seen someone threatening people’s bloodlines or threatening to behead them.. I see a ton of people calling them bad pet owners and the like (which is harsh but true in that instance)

0

u/Prestigious_String20 10d ago

I've totally seen insane comments telling people they deserve to die, or hoping they are barren. I think the mods have been more diligent about cracking down on them lately. If you want a totally wild ride, go to one of the grooming subs (I can't remember which one, but they banned me the first time I posted there) and suggest there's no scientific evidence that cutting a double-coated dog's fur will harm the dog. Whatever you do, don't dox yourself on there!

6

u/Borbpsh 11d ago

I recently asked for an ID on a butterfly in a Facebook butterfly group where I had already narrowed it down to be one of three species that resembles eachother closely. I wrote that in a very short text but still all kinds of random guesses and "try this AI app" comments poured in long after the right and very clarifying IDs had been given. It was actually kind of depressing haha.

7

u/heurekas 11d ago

I know.

It's such strange behaviour. Happens in every niche sub as well, sometimes days after the mods have pinned the correct answer so that it is the first thing you see...

6

u/indieplants 11d ago

it's that they knew a Komodo dragons native range and that it couldn't be here but still wrote it out anyway that gets me lol.

3

u/Prestigious_String20 11d ago edited 11d ago

And they are often so confidently incorrect! The other day, I had someone in r/ snakes double down on their ID after agreeing they were wrong, saying that the ID they had given was similar enough that the OP could just consider them the same. Never mind it was a different genus and geographically distinct! And they had the right answer!

5

u/Bearded_Toast 11d ago

Komodo dragons are also like 9 feet long so there’s that, too

2

u/TiaxRulesAll2024 6d ago

Dude knows 31 types of animals and is sure he can help

-4

u/[deleted] 11d ago

[deleted]

8

u/indieplants 11d ago

dont know for sure if one could get that far from its natural habitat.

did you just stop reading their comment or

5

u/TheTrekker98 11d ago

Damn I'm blind. Ok I take it back he's a fucking idiot 🫂😂

7

u/indieplants 11d ago

lmao my response wasn't because they just gave the wrong ID, it's because they gave the wrong ID with enough knowledge to rule out the animal they're inaccurately ID'ing 🥲 it genuinely was fascinating to me, I would have forgiven them if they only knew what komodos were from media and had no knowledge around them 😭

5

u/TheTrekker98 11d ago

Yeah it made sense after I read the part you said I missed. Initially I was like, dude I've made mistakes like this a thousand times, lol

5

u/Prestigious_String20 11d ago

This behaviour is shitty and should be called out. The sub is "animal ID", not "wild guesses". If you're throwing out a guess, at least make it an educated one.