Many monitor lizards are top predators. Monitor lizards live in a wide variety of habitats, ranging from mangrove swamps to dense forests to savannas to arid deserts. A Pleistocene fossil monitor from Australia is estimated to have reached 5 m in total length and to have weighed over 600 kg. Although monitors are morphologically conservative, they vary in mass by five orders of magnitude. There is proportionately almost as much difference in mass among species of monitor lizards as there is between a mouse and an elephant.
Sands constitute a natural event recorder, leaving a record of what creatures have moved past.
Strong winds regularly dull and erase all tracks. Although it took quite a while, I eventually became fairly skilled at reading the record in the sand. Tracks are difficult to see during mid-day when the sun is high or on overcast days. Tracks are best seen by looking into the light. It is almost like becoming the lizard yourself.