Giant South American lizard

Giant South American lizard Category Giant lizard Proposed scientific names Other names Greater dragon iguana, terrestrial caiman, Venezuelan monitor Country reported Brazil, Venezuela First reported 1928 Prominent investigators • Constant Tastevin • Silvano Lorenzoni • Dale A. Drinnon

The giant South American lizard was a cryptid lizard reported from rainforests in Venezuela and Brazil, sometimes compared to a monitor lizard, which are found only in the Old World.

Attestations

According to Dale A. Drinnon, there is Precolumbian artwork in Central and South America depicting a 12' crested lizard, capable of sitting upright to look a man in the eye. During his travels on the Riozinho and Liberdade Rivers during the 1920s, the missionary Constant Tastevin was told of a "terrestrial caiman" which the seringueiros claimed lived in holes under the roots of trees. Several claimed to have seen it, describing it as very dark brown, almost black, with a broad back. One seringueiro was said to have been maimed for life after it bit his hand, and another witness identified it with a picture of a "monotreme" in a book he owned.

Silvano Lorenzoni collected information on giant lizards in Venezuela during the 1970s. When he travelled to the Angel Falls region, local Indians told him that "unusual size lizards" were found in the area, and ecologist Leon Croizat (1894 – 1982) later told him that an exceptionally large reptile resembling a Komodo dragon (Varanus komodoensis) was claimed by a prospector to live in the Galeras de El Pao. Herpetologist J. B. Graham later told Lorenzoni that he had seen a large unidentifiable lizard near the base of Cerro Santa Ana on the Paraguaná Peninsula.

Theories

Drinnon theorises that reports refer to a giant iguanid lizard, twice the size of the largest known species, which he calls the greater dragon iguana (Iguana sp. nov.). Drinnon believes the same animal could explain some sightings of neodinosaurs in the Amazon Basin compared to Iguanodon. However, Lorenzoni felt that iguanids were a poor match for what was being described.