Smallest monitor lizard

Native to Asia, Africa, and Oceania (and occurring in the New World as invasive species), the monitor lizards or varanids include the world's largest terrestrial lizards. However, the world's smallest monitor lizard is the short-tailed pygmy monitor Varanus brevicauda of Australia, which has a maximum length of only 25 cm, and may even be the smallest monitor ever (i.e., including fossil species). The world's largest – and heaviest – species of terrestrial lizard ever (the now-extinct giant monitor Megalania prisca), the world's largest – and heaviest – living species of terrestrial lizard (the Komodo dragon Varanus komodoensis), and the world's longest living species of terrestrial lizard (Salvadori's monitor V. salvadorii) are all varanids. Consequently, with the short-tailed pygmy monitor at the opposite end of the varanid size scale, this means that the varanids vary in mass by nearly five orders of magnitude. Proportionately, therefore, there is almost as much difference in mass among species within the genus Varanus (all true monitors) as there is between an elephant and a mouse.