Funny, I had friends who had one for a pet (though it was only about 4-feet long, if you measured it nose to tail). It was moody but not mean. But goldfish beware.

Now Willie, their monitor from Sumatra, was a sweetie...

Sacre Bleu. I think I'd move north.

I'm waiting for the fellow who always comments "What the hell is going on in Florida?"

These creatures are bad news for our local boys.

Maybe they'll eat those walking fish down there in S Fla?

I often do wonder what's going on down there...Ya gotta admit some strange stuff been goin down over the last year or so. But a Nile Monitor isn't so strange, when you compare it to the Snakehead fish we have up here in VA and MD.

No, you're absolutely right. Very strange stuff has been going on down here.
My main worry is things that would chase me in the backyard. I wouldn't want to have to deal with a reared-up Nile monitor.

"human babies" struck me as funny.... I guess the reporter really felt like people needed the differentiation- as opposed to cat babies. Ha!

;) It struck me as odd too. "Infants" would have worked.
But then maybe then he'd worry about people confusing them with "cat infants."

We had a scare back six or seven years ago about a Nile monitor running around Cape Coral. Thing was huge, and people had no freaking clue what it was at the time - it was just this big lizard streaking through people's lawns. It was like the Cape's Loch Ness Monster, until somebody trapped it in a garage, if I recall correctly.

Yet another good argument for keeping a loaded 12-gauge close to hand. And perhaps a perfect excuse for the purchase of a nice small-caliber rifle with a scope and a silencer. I be like that woman with the BB gun...if one o' them critters shows up in my neighborhood, it a dead lizard.

I wonder how monitor tastes...like alligator, perhaps? Or most likely chicken.

The quote about calimari disturbed me, as I really like calimari. I hate when people say stuff like that because it burns its way into the core of my brain.
Some throw-away quote about lobster on a science show put me off them forever. A scientist called them the cockroach of the sea.

I do belive monitors are eaten in South East Asia and the Phillipines,I am sure with some barbeque sauce they would be fine.I would get a gun as I am also sure they will eat dogs.
I would shoot the damn thing and feed it too my two Jumbo sized bassetts and make a nice pair of Boots. Monitor its whats for dinner...

LOL Donnah--just wonderin'...do you eat oysters?

You'd have to shoot them, Neil. Imagine trying to kill one of those sons of bitches with a shovel.

Yes, Amy, I do like oysters. When I was growing up, I always ate oyster stew when I was sick. Are they the slug of the sea? The day-old-squashed-by-a-tire frog of the sea?

Nay, Donnah, do not worry...I'm not going to subvert your love of the noble oyster. I just think it's ironic that anyone who can eat a raw oyster would be squeamish for any reason about other food. Any time I start getting wiggy about some food item I just remember what an oyster looks like laying in it's shell and how much I love them (four dozen Appalachicola's raw at one sitting is my record), and I go "Oh, okay, this isn't so bad..."

Sounds like a dwarf goanna to me- all of our tetchy wildlife is native- you poor buggers have to import yours.

BTW, the local natives claim goanna is numbawan kaikai; can't speak for that critter, but jungle python is rather tasty, in a red curry.

I keep hearing about the things, but I haven't seen one yet.
Ducks bathing in the low spot in the front yard I've seen - several snake species I've seen - anoles and skinks in profusion - but no monitor lizards.
(Bill is in Cape Coral? Heh. I thought I was the only politcal blogger here.)
I remain unworried - unless there is a hurricane headed this way. I'll take a monitor lizard over a hurricane any day of the week.