New Monitor Lizard Discovered

Dragons still roam the Earth, at least if you consider the Varanus genus worthy of the moniker.

A new monitor lizard species has been discovered on the Talaud Islands in Indonesia by German scientist André Koch from the Zoological Research Museum Alexander Koenig in Bonn, during the course of a joint German-Indonesian research project. The new species was identified by using morphological characteristics and DNA analysis. Varanus lirungensis was described in the latest issue of the renowned Australian Journal of Zoology.

“The finding of Varanus lirungensis is very important because it illustrates the high diversity of monitor lizards in Indonesia” notes André Koch. Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Böhme, also from the Zoological Research Museum Alexander Koenig, adds: “After the discovery of several new species of Asian water monitors on Sulawesi and surrounding islands two years ago, this is further evidence for the underestimated diversity of Indonesian monitor lizards.”

Loren Coleman About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015. Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.

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