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Varanus eremius This little monitor Varanus eremius didn't seem to mind us disturbing his midnight bask. I have to wonder why it was out at night time as they are a predominately diurnal species. It may be that he was actually a sleep until we disturbed it as it did seem very docile although probably stunned by our spot light. Eremius are a small, extremely fast agile monitor and we seldom get to see them, not because they are uncommon, but more because of the fact they are rather secretive and normally so quick to escape attention. As a rule of thumb if we see a small monitor fleeing so fast that we have trouble establishing what it was, then it usually turns out to be eremius. This monitor has an extremely long tail but unfortunately this pic does not show it. Myself and a friend of mine once had the pleasure of finding a female specimen one afternoon in the process of depositing her eggs in a burrow that we were exploring. To our knowledge there has been no other recorded accounts of this before and just about nothing was previously known about its nesting site.