Yellow-spotted monitor
species of reptile
The yellow-spotted monitor (Varanus panoptes), also known as the Argus monitor, is a monitor lizard found in northern and western regions of Australia and southern New Guinea.
Taxonomy
The first description of the species was provided in a revision of the varanids of Western Australia, where the family is represented by diverse taxa in a wide variety of habitats. Early collections and descriptions of the region's species have historically been uncertain, leading the ICZN to issue an opinion that related to this taxon. A third subspecies was published in 1988, based on specimens from southern New Guinea. The describing author discovered that the specimen selected as the lectotype of Varanus gouldii was in fact assignable to this species, recently described by reptile specialist Glenn Storr. By issuing an opinion on the various taxonomic considerations, the voting members conserved the name published with John Edward Gray's description and stabilised the nomenclature of this species name.
The epithet panoptes was inspired by a mythological figure with one hundred eyes, the protector of Princess Io named Argus Panoptes. The species may be referred to as the floodplains goanna in the northern regions of Australia.
Subspecies
Three subspecies are recognised by the Australian Faunal Directory and the Reptile Database:
Varanus panoptes rubidus Storr, 1980. The holotype of this subspecies was obtained near Cue, Western Australia, at the midwest of the continent, and the population is endemic to the north and west of that state.
“Yellow-spotted monitor” enters the record as species of reptile. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Yellow-spotted, monitor and species can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Yellow-spotted monitor” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Yellow-spotted, monitor and species provides the most credible route into that argument.
The date and method of observation matter as much as the stated conclusion, especially where classification or consensus has changed. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q652309. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1988 and 1980.
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This entry incorporates text from “Yellow-spotted monitor” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.