New species of giant lizard found in Philippines

April 10th, 2010 - 8:28 pm ICT by Aishwarya Bhatt  

Manila, Apr 10 (THAINDIAN NEWS) Philippines is the home of a new species of a giant lizard. Even though the scientists were totally in the dark about its existence, but the tribal’s of Agta and Ilongot who live in the forests which are located on the northern Luzon Island, knew about its existence since a long time. In fact they even used to hunt the giant lizard for its meat, which is said to contain a high percentage of protein.

A team of international scientists which belonged to US, Philippines and The Netherlands carried out some surveys on the lizard specimens that had been well preserved in the US and Philippines museums. This team of scientists was led by Dr Brown, and they identified the new species on the basis of a number of attributes such as body size, scales, colorations on its body and of course the DNA. The scientists said that the giant lizard is generally 2 meters in length, and it belongs to the ‘monitor group’, which is the group, to which all the world’s huge lizards belong.

The scientists are very excited about the new species, and they say that it is very rare to find such a large new species. “It is an incredible animal,” according to Dr Rafe Brown, who was one of the scientists who discovered the giant lizard.

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