VARANUS. 133 
VARANID.E. 
Varanidm, Cope, Proc. Ac. Philad. 1864, p. 227. 
Body long, rounded ; no dorsal crest. Head narrow, pointed, covered with small 
polygonal scales. Tongue very long, bifid, retractile, sheathed at the base. Teeth 
dilated at base, adnate to the inner side of the jaws ; no palatine teeth. Eyelids well 
developed. Ear distinct. Nostril between the eye and the snout. Limbs strong. 
Scales arranged transversely, small, roundish, juxtaposed, each surrounded by a small 
circular fold of granules ; ventrals squarish. Tail long. Rudimentary prseanal pores 
occasionally present 1 . 
The osteological features of this family, according to Cope and Boulenger 2 , are a 
single, long, narrow premaxillary ; coalesced nasals ; two frontals ; a single parietal ; 
a supraorbital bone ; postorbital arch incomplete ; a bony postfronto-squamosal arch ; 
widely separated pterygoids and palatines ; infraorbital fossa bounded by the pterygoid, 
palatine, and transverse bone, the maxillary being excluded. No dermal cranial 
ossifications. Clavicle slender ; interclavicle anchor-shaped. 
It is represented by a single genus. 
VARANUS. 
Varanus, Merrem, Tent. Syst. Ampli. 1820, p. 58. 
Daudin included the two lizards V. griseus and V. niloticus in the genus 
Tupinambis, to which he also referred the so-called sauvegardes of the New World. 
Maria Sybilla Marien, as pointed out by Cuvier, was the first to use the term sauvegarde, 
but she was careful to state that she could not explain how it had come to be applied 
to these lizards. Seba either invented the explanation that the teyu-guacu and its 
allies were called sauvegardes because they uttered a whistling sound as a warning to 
man of the approach of crocodiles and caimans, or he had learned it from some 
traveller who had wished to explain the term. It is possible that the teyu-guuQU may 
utter the foregoing sound of alarm when it sees one of these saurians approaching 
it, but that it does so for the reason assigned is absurd. Unfortunately the cognate term 
" Monitor " has been applied to the two Egyptian lizards, from their having been at 
first associated by Daudin with the varanoid-like Teiidce. It is needless to say that 
this term, as applied to them, is equally misleading. 
1 Proc. Zool. Soc. 1895, p. 643. 
2 Ann. & Mag. N. H. (5) xiv. 1884, p. 120 ; Cat. Liz. B. M. ii. 1885, p. 303. 
