Rock Monitor rescue

Hey guys

This is a old picture but I thought I'd share it anyway

The lizard is a Rock Monitor. Can't remember the scientific name right now but they are very common in my area. This guy was about a meter, maybe longer. He had been attacked by someones dog and since I'm the local Reptile and Insect expert, they called me. They took it to my parents bar, I arrived two minutes later. They told me what happened, and said it was on the back of their "bakkie" (South African word for Pickup Truck). I then proceeded to lift it up and lay it on the grass. The Monitor didn't so much as move during that. I then proceeded to examine the wounds. They were mainly superficial wounds but looked quite bad anyway. The monitor was playing dead the entire time, so I decided to take it home to make sure it wasn't actually dead. Got home, put him in a temporary container and about ten minutes later started to wake up and was getting really agro. I eventually calmed him down by throwing a towl over him. I then grabbed him and released him into the wild just up the road.

This picture was unfortunetly the only decent picture I got of him but I hope you enjoy.

Scientific name is Varanus
exanthematicus. Nice job on helping him.
Did he try to bite or tail whack you?

Both. It was quite harrowing, but it was good experience if I ever need to do it again.

cheers, man. Gotta say, I envy you for having monitors in your homeland - however, being a reptile lover I do not envy these kind of encounters... I get enough emails of beheaded "copperheads" (ALWAYS a harmless snake, 90% of the time a milk or king)

Good man for helpin it out, good lookin monitor

It's nice to have people that care about animals like this, I'm sure most people would have left it there.