Scientists in the German city of Bonn have identified a new type of large monitor lizard that can reach 1.20 metres in length, officials at the Alexander Koenig Zoological Research Museum (ZFMK) have announced.
The carnivorous saurian, which bears the Latin name Varanus nesterovi, is related to the desert or grey monitor and lives in a very small area on the south-western edge of the Zagros region of Iran.
The lizard was named after the Russian scientist who originally discovered it on the Iraq-Iran border in 1914, but who was unable to describe it due to the confusion in his home country after the October Revolution, ZFMK Professor Emeritus Wolfgang Boehme said.
The Smithsonian Museum in Washington in the US has had one of the lizards from south-west Iran in its collection since 1964, but was also unable to identify it.
In the 1980s, Boehme discovered one of the three original animals collected by the Russian scientist in 1914 in the inventory of the St Petersburg Zoological Museum.
Based on the four examples of the lizard - the three in Russia plus the one in the US - Boehme was able to identify the species with the help of two of his research students and two Russian colleagues.
Almost all of the characteristics of Varanus nesterovi are particularly original and point to an ancient variety of monitor lizard.
Boehme's team have already discovered 15 other types of monitor lizard.
Varanus nesterovi was presented on Thursday in an article in the Russian Journal of Herpetology.
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