Our House Dragons had a Family Meeting today

Our House Dragons are of the species Varanus cumingi. They are also known as Monitor Lizards. Currently we have a gang of 3 of these guys living just 10 to 20 feet from our dining table on the veranda. They live in the space between the concrete wall and the bamboo cover.
The two adults measure between 3 and 4 feet and have a grey/yellow skin colour. Junior measures about 2 feet and is mostly black with some yellow stripes.

‘ll write a bit more about the animals in our garden and the still rich fauna of Camiguin. But let’s first see the meeting. You may click on the photos to enlarge them.

Our House Dragons – the Meeting

See the bluish tongue of the right side animal

We think that the left animal is the female. Why? She decided what will go on …

How our lizards live with us

We hear or see them almost daily. They peek out between the bamboo sticks on the concrete wall. They stroll on the wall and sometime hustle over our veranda. About three weeks ago, one of them even took a shortcut through our living room. 

We hear them when they scratch with their extremely sharp claws on the bamboo. And we hear them hunting. It’s not exactly the lizards we hear but the last cry of their prey. We see our house dragons with frogs and toads in the snout. We hear our tucos (geckos) shout and hiss when they get attacked. The lizards also control the mouse and rat population in our garden. 

The enemies of our monitor lizards

As we do not have crocodiles in our garden, their two principal enemies are our dog and our gardener. Our dog, called Pups, is a typical Philippines dog of a thousand fathers. She is a well educated guard dog. But when one of the lizards sets a foot in our garden, the hunt begins. Although our Pups is a very fast runner, she has no chance to catch the lizards. I never thought that theses reptiles are so extremely fast.

Pups when she was a 3 months old baby

Much more dangerous for the dragons is our care-taker Danilo. If he can catch one of the lizards, he is really happy. He takes the guy home, where it enriches the dinner. Bon appetit!

Although this is a widespread species, it is heavily harvested illegally (contravening national legislation), for local and national consumption. 

We are happy with our dragons

We are happy to have these dragons around our house. They control pest and are funny to observe. They are shy and do not attack humans. Only when catching them, one must be really careful. There are first the extremely sharp claws on her paws.  Although monitor lizards do secrete venom, it is not fatal to humans. The main cause for concern would be bacterial infection from the bite.

[GARD]