Re: what do monitor lizards monitor?

[Jarno_Peschier@saybolt.nl]

Monitor lizards are known in Arab countries as the Ouran or varan. Apparently
"Ouran" sounds a bit like a German word, (for "Sentry" I think) that was later
mis-translated into English as "Monitor". I don't have the exact text with me
(it's somewhere in Rodney Steel's "Living Dragons").


It's not just called "varan" in Arab countries, but here in Holland too. I
      actually had a bit of a tough time exactly understand what kind of animal
      was meant when I first encountered "monitor lizard" (I think that was in
      the Dinosaur Heresies) until I somehow made/found the connection to the
      group of animals I already knew as "varanen" ("varaan" if you're talking
      about just one of the critters) in Dutch.



Greetings,

Jarno Peschier