Imagine encountering an unexpected visitor in your backyard oasis.
An Arizona resident experienced just that when an Asian Water Monitor lizard, the world’s second-largest of its kind, made a surprise splash in his swimming pool.
“It sounded just like a baseball hitting the water,” Eric Johnson from Peoria recounted to Fox 10.
Johnson was tending to his garden when he heard the sizable splash and turned to discover a lizard doing laps in his pool.
“Suddenly, this enormous lizard surfaces and starts swimming across the pool. I couldn’t tell if it was dangerous or if it might attack,” he explained.
Initially mistaking the creature for a snake, Johnson wisely kept his distance but managed to capture footage of the unexpected guest, the Asian Water Monitor, on camera.
The lizard proceeded to climb out of the pool and sunbathe, Johnson said that he took his unexpected guest to be friendly.
“So it seemed like it was sweet and friendly and it kind of just laid there, but I wasn’t trying to go test that theory, you know,” he said, “I figured it was some type of, you know, half-land, half-water animal because he looked pretty comfortable.”
The scaly swimmer eventually climbed up a tree and left Johnson’s yard, but the Arizona homeowner said it looked like he had fun.
“He looked happy swimming in the pool,” he said.
Asian Water Monitors can grow up to seven feet long and weigh up to 90 pounds, they’re native to areas in Southeast Asia such as China, Thailand and Vietnam.
Alex Roszkowski, the Reptile Manager at Phoenix Herpetological Sanctuary told Fox 10 that while Asian Water Monitors don’t typically attack people, they can be dangerous.
“They’re not gonna try to actively attack somebody necessarily, but if they feel cornered or threatened in some way, they do have very sharp teeth, and very sharp claws so they can and will defend themselves,” he said.
Roszkowski speculated that the lizard was somebody’s pet that got loose, since they aren’t native to the state.
