At the beginning of the 2001st century, a German reptile importer received a consignment of monitors from Indonesia. Initially, these should have been emerald monitors, but when he opened the containers he found the expected slender tree monitors, but instead of being green they were blue. The singular discovery alerted the scientific community, which determined that it was a biological discovery: the blue monitor, described as a new species in XNUMX.

The blue monitor is native to the island of Batanta, west of New Guinea. Its background color is black and it has blue scales that can form ocelli or bands on the back of the body, while the ventral parts are light turquoise. Their coloration varies individually, and you can find bluer, blacker or grayer individuals. They can reach a meter in length.

Virtually nothing is known about their wild habits, although due to their similarity they must be very similar to those of the emerald monitor. It is a monitor highly specialized for arboreal life, a hunter with diurnal habits. Most of our knowledge about this species comes from a small group of individuals that live in some zoos, where their reproduction has already been achieved.