A lost monitor lizard was rediscovered on an island in Papua New Guinea by a zoologist from Finland. The lizard was declared lost after it was reported to be a casualty in an 1800s shipwreck.
In an article published in Science Daily, Valter Weijola, a zoologist from the University of Turku in Finland, discovered the one lost species of the monitor lizard in their fieldwork at New Ireland island. In their fieldwork that aims to survey the monitor lizards in the island, he and his colleagues discovered that the lizard they have found was different morphologically and genetically compared from the usual "Varanus indicus" species.
The monitor lizard, a medium-size monitor, was first discovered by French naturalist Rene Lesson back in 1823. It's scientific name "Varanus douarrha" was inspired by the pronunciation of the lizard's name of the people's language in New Ireland island called Siar, where people share the lizard's home.
The "Varanus douarrha" monitor lizard was reported to have been present on the Bismarck Islands, in which the New Ireland is part of. In a journal published in Australian Journal of Zoology titled "Reinstatement of Varanus douarrha Lesson, 1830 as a valid species with comments on the zoogeography of monitor lizards (Squamata : Varanidae) in the Bismarck Archipelago, Papua New Guinea," this type of monitor lizard was discovered to have inhabited the island way longer than the "Varanus indicus".
The specimen of the monitor lizard collected by Lesson was one of the things that went down with the ship after it was struck down at the Cape of Good Hope in 1824. Unfortunately, the monitor lizard was not systematically studied after that incident.
Although scientists are aware that some type of monitor lizards are roaming New Ireland, they figured that these lizards are the "Varanus indicus," the most common mangrove monitor species found all over New Guinea. That is the "Varanus indicus" and there are about 90 species of monitor lizard around the world.
The "Varanus douarrha" monitor lizard is described as a black with yellow speckles concentrated more densely on its underbelly. It could grow to about 4.3 feet in length. It is the only large native animal that is known to live in New Ireland island.
