{"id":544008,"date":"2026-03-18T06:54:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T06:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/544008\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T06:54:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T06:54:09","slug":"3-new-lizard-species-discovered-in-australia-including-stunning-orange-headed-rock-monitor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/544008\/","title":{"rendered":"3 New Lizard Species Discovered in Australia\u2013Including Stunning Orange-Headed Rock Monitor"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Orange-headed rock monitor lizard (Varanus umbra) on savannah in north Queensland -Supplied by Stephen Zozaya<\/p>\n

These days, when scientists announce they\u2019ve discovered a new species of animal, it\u2019s usually some miniature frog or deep sea isopod.<\/p>\n

But check out this\u00a0Varanus umbra,\u00a0a never-before-described species of rock monitor, and he\u2019s a real lookah\u2019<\/p>\n

Dr. Stephen Zozaya, a research fellow at the Australian National University, described the shock he and his colleagues experienced when seeing the animal for the first time to ABC News AU.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI was like, \u2018What is that?’\u201d Dr. Zozaya said. \u201cI had no idea these things existed, and it turns out a few photos had showed up online from nature enthusiasts.\u201d<\/p>\n

The orange-headed rock monitor is just one of a trio of newly-described<\/a> monitor lizards that Dr. Zozaya and his colleagues identified on an expedition into the savannahs of north Queensland state.<\/p>\n

The discoveries also include the\u00a0Varanus phosphorus,\u00a0or the yellow-headed rock monitor, and the rainbow rock monitor Varanus iridis.\u00a0It\u2019s hugely unlikely that such large and charismatic reptile species could remain unknown to humans, and in fact, they were already known to local wildlife enthusiasts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey hadn\u2019t really attracted the attention of researchers who work on monitor lizards,\u201d evolutionary biologist Zozaya, who specializes in reptiles, told ABC.<\/p>\n

\"\"Varanus iridis, or the rainbow-headed rock monitor \u2013 credit, Dr. Stephen Zozaya<\/p>\n

\u201cLevels of genetic divergence between these three populations was much greater than many of the other species we already recognize.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed anyone who had given it some thought assumed the three lizards were simply local colorations of existing species. But genetic samples taken from the animals proved otherwise.<\/p>\n

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Encouragingly, these three lizards were all documented by Zozaya and his team in areas considered unsuitable for cattle grazing, and overly treacherous for all but the most robust vehicles and determined drivers.<\/p>\n

The scientists told ABC that there was already evidence that the yellow-headed rock monitor had been poached for exotic pet trading, an unscrupulous practice putting dozens of reptile species at risk worldwide.<\/p>\n

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Non-involved experts speaking with ABC said that the discovery highlights how understudied Queensland\u2019s dry savannahs are when compared with the state\u2019s rainforests, and that new species, even as large as a monitor lizard, are waiting to be discovered.<\/p>\n

SHARE These Gorgeous Reptiles Not Known To The Outside World\u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Orange-headed rock monitor lizard (Varanus umbra) on savannah in north Queensland -Supplied by Stephen Zozaya These days, when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":544009,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[2840,49,48,8095,33833,14351,66,323],"class_list":["post-544008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-australia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-discovery","tag-hope","tag-reptiles","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=544008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}