When French kayaker Nouria Newman was walking her kayak to the water on the banks of the Ganges River in northern India and it felt it a bit heavy than usual, she chalked it up to being tired and went on with her day.
After 20km of paddling, she felt something on her leg and it wasn’t her water bottle. She let out an instinctive scream and when she pulled her skirt all she saw was massive tail in the nose of her kayak. She pulled over to figure out what exactly was stowed away in her boat and was shocked at what she found.
Unconfirmed but it looks like the reptile was an Asian Water Monitor which is widely considered to be the second largest lizard species, after the Komodo dragon. If you suffer from herpetophobia (fear of reptiles) this is a nightmare scenario.
The Asian water monitor, also known as the common or Malayan water monitor, is a large, semiaquatic lizard native to South and Southeast Asia, where it thrives in wetlands, mangroves, swamps, and even urban canals. As one of the world’s largest lizard species—second only to the Komodo dragon in size—this opportunistic carnivore is renowned for its intelligence, agility, and adaptability, often scavenging or hunting near human settlements while using its powerful body, serrated teeth, and forked tongue to sense prey. Despite being hunted for its skin and meat, its populations remain stable and widespread.
- Impressive Size: Adults typically reach 5–6 feet in length and 40–90 pounds, but the largest recorded specimen from Sri Lanka measured over 10 feet and weighed up to 165 pounds.
- Skilled Swimmer : Excellent swimmers, they use their laterally compressed, keeled tail as a rudder and can remain fully submerged for up to 30 minutes, even venturing into saltwater or far offshore.
- Diverse Diet: Carnivorous opportunists that devour fish, frogs, birds, rodents, snakes, turtle eggs, young crocodiles, and carrion, using their keen sense of smell and ability to dislocate their jaw to swallow large prey whole.
- Defensive Tactics: When threatened, they whip their tail like a weapon, climb trees with sharp claws, or leap from branches into water to escape predators; they also possess mild venom in their saliva, though not lethal to humans.
- Reproductive Feats: Females lay 10–40 eggs in rotting logs or termite mounds after breeding from April to October, with incubation lasting 6–7 months; hatchlings are independent and can grow rapidly, reaching maturity in 1–2 years.
- Urban Adaptors: Highly tolerant of human presence, they flourish in cities like Singapore and Sri Lanka, controlling pests like rats and crabs, but have become invasive in parts of the southeastern U.S.
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