Reptiles turning up in the oddest places

The New Paper AsiaOne 12 May 14;

So big, neighbours thought it was komodo

The reptile, which measured about a metre long, hung perfectly still above his neighbour's gate.

Mr Ganwani Lachman, 58, a sales manager, thought it was fake when he saw it around 1.30pm on Tuesday. "It didn't look real to me at first. It looked like a dummy", he told The New Paper.

Nevertheless, it attracted a lot of attention from 15 to 20 neighbours, who gathered excitedly outside the first-storey unit of Block 425, Canberra Road in Sembawang.

One of them even thought the reptile, a monitor lizard, was a komodo dragon.

Mr Lachman, who was on his way to lunch with his wife, snapped a few photos of the lizard, then left.

When they arrived home later around 7pm, the lizard was gone.

At about 8pm, Mrs Sirya Lachman, also 58, went to the rubbish chute outside their eighth-storey flat.

On her way back, the businesswoman noticed another crowd of 20 to 25 people gathered downstairs.

The lizard was back and had made itself comfortable on the gate of the unit next to where it was first spotted.

About 20 to 25 minutes later, officers from the Animal Concerns Research & Education Society (Acres) arrived to take the reptile away. Acres said the lizard was a clouded monitor lizard, one of two species commonly found in Singapore.

It does not pose any danger unless provoked and, while it is carnivorous, feeds on only dead animal matter and the occasional small bird or egg.

If threatened, it may turn aggressive and whip its tail at attackers. It has also been known to bite if intimidated.