Water Monitor (Varanus Monitor Kabaragoya)

Sinhalese: Kabaragoya

Description: This Monitor has a general color of dark grey-black with yellow markings. They have long forked tongues and grow to an overall length of 200 cm.

Distribution: Found throughout the low country wherever there is water.

Habits: These monitors are solitary and enjoy pandanus groves near the seashore where they feed upon crabs, turtle’s eggs and sand rats. They also eat snakes, beetles, centipedes etc, and are useful scavengers. They are good but slow swimmers, and use their tail as a means of propulsion. As with the land monitor, they are able to raise themselves on their hind legs and tail when they engage in male to male rivalry fights or need to see over the undergrowth or long grass; their tails can also be used as a powerful weapon of defense.

Breeding: The female lays between 9 and 25 oval soft-shelled eggs, in hollow trees or in holes near the river banks.