New species of giant lizard discovered in Philippines by Zuzana Zelenakova

Giant lizard discovered in the Northern Philippines is about two meters long and it is no carnivore, it eats fruit and lives in tress. New species found on rather crowded Luzon Island was a great surprise to scientists. Although local people living in the forests on the island are well acquainted with the Varanus bitatawa, as the brightly-colored lizard is called, which they hunt for meat, scientists did not know about its existence. They assume it is a rather secretive creature and does not dare to cross open areas outside the safety of the forest. Given the fact that this close relative of monitor lizard can grow up to two meters, it is quite surprising that it weighs on! ly about seven kilograms. 'It lives up in trees, so it can't get as massive as the Komodo dragon, a huge thing that eats large amounts of fresh meat,' said Rafe Brown of the University of Kansas, whose team made the discovery. 'This thing is a fruit-eater and it's only the third fruit-eating lizard in the world.' Experts saw the first photographs of the big lizard in 2001, when hunters carried the colorful green carcasses, however, the animals were not properly identified back then. In the following years more and more stories were spreading among biologists 'about these two kinds of lizard that everyone liked to eat because their flesh tasted better than the ones that lived on the ground; this thing was described as bigger and more brightly colored'. As it turned out two kinds of lizard that stories mentioned were in fact two different names for the same animal. The surprising found was last minute as the team of Rafe Brown was running out of money and food and the expedit! ion was nearing the end.

related story (sgx1! 6942): http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100406/sc_afp/sciencespeciesre...

by Zuzana Zelenakova for Cantell TV (http://cantell.tv)

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