Varanus exanthematicus
The savannah monitor is a medium-sized species of monitor lizard native to Africa. The species is known as Bosc's monitor in Europe, since French scientist Louis Bosc first described the species. It belongs to the subgenus Polydaedalus.
KKPCW · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Also called
- savannah monitorPBDB
- Sits inside
- VaranusPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Varanidae
- Life habit
- scansorialPBDB, for Varanidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Varanidae
Time the record covers
At most 12 thousand years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 11.7 ka and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
4 occurrences of Varanus exanthematicus on record, most of them in the Holocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
4 occurrences- Holocene100%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
1 formation
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The named rock units Varanus exanthematicus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Varanus exanthematicus and its relatives
HoloceneWhere Varanus exanthematicus and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.
Found in the same rock
51 taxa- Bivalvia4 sites
- Bovidae4 sites
- Giraffa camelopardalis4 sites
- Hystrix cristata4 sites
- Mammalia4 sites
- Numida meleagris4 sites
- Phacochoerus aethiopicus4 sites
- Pila4 sites
- Struthio camelus4 sites
- Viverridae4 sites
- Aves3 sites
- Canis3 sites
- Eudorcas rufifrons3 sites
- Euxerus erythropus3 sites
- Felis silvestris3 sites
- Genetta3 sites
- Lepus3 sites
- Alcelaphus buselaphus2 sites
- consobrina consobrina2 sites
- Corvus2 sites
- Damaliscus lunatus2 sites
- Equus asinus2 sites
- Geochelone sulcata2 sites
- Hippotragus equinus2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Varanus exanthematicus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
1 referenceEach of the 4 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content2
Picture of Varanus exanthematicus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- KKPCW
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Varanus exanthematicus · ouvc:h:10675
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itVaranus through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Bosc 1792)