Posted on 05/20/2025 7:19:51 PM PDT by nickcarraway
A monitor lizard was seen feeding on the remains of a newborn baby in Thailand, alarming villagers in the Bang Phli district on Tuesday (May 13), according to Thai media.
Bangkaew Police Station officers received a report from residents at around 12.30pm that day and discovered the monitor lizard with the human remains in its mouth near a body of water along Soi King Kaew 28, Samut Prakan Province, located in the outskirts of Bangkok.
According to witnesses who spoke with PPTV36, residents were resting in their homes when they heard movement outside.
Upon leaving their homes to take a look, they saw the lizard holding something which appeared to be the corpse of a baby in its jaws.
Some residents chased the reptile away, but the monitor lizard soon returned and circled the remains, refusing to leave.
Residents then alerted the authorities.
Officers and rescue workers from the Ruamkatanyu Foundation were eventually only able to recover the baby's head — no other parts of the body nor any clothing were found, PPTV36 reported on Wednesday.
The baby's remains were transferred to the Chakri Naruebodindra Medical Institute for further investigation into the cause of death. No signs of decomposition were reported, according to the Bangkok Post.
The sex of the baby, estimated to have been carried to full term, has yet to be identified. It is also not clear whether the baby was born alive or stillborn.
According to the Thai Enquirer, the infant is believed to have been abandoned, with the site of the grisly incident located near a row of rented homes occupied primarily by migrant workers.
Authorities speculate that the baby might have been abandoned because the mother was unable to care for it, Bangkok Post reported.
The child's mother could face legal action should the baby have been alive when it was abandoned, the police said.
I guess they have crappy parents in Asia too.
District Judge to Decide in Dingos’ Infringement Case against Komodos
Horrible.
I was in my doctor’s office today. In waiting room I sat next to a nice couple who brought their 4 month old daughter in for a checkup. Beautiful baby. Their 4th child, all the other kids were boys. Great parents in Spokane.
“Horrible.
I was in my doctor’s office today. In waiting room I sat next to a nice couple who brought their 4 month old daughter in for a checkup. Beautiful baby. Their 4th child, all the other kids were boys. Great parents in Spokane.”
____________________________________________________________
Pretty sure they’re all safe from Komodo Dragon predation there in Spokane.
In related news:
Various Houston area Planned Parenthood clinics with clogged sewar pipe issues are seeking to import monitor lizards.
Yet another reason the only place I like to see dinosaurs is in the movies.
What does the culture have to do with Monitor Lizards?
I hate to nitpick, but although a Komodo Dragon is a type of monitor lizard, I don’t think this particular one was Komodo. Komodos aren’t native to Thailand, they only live on islands.
What doesn't culture have to do with anything?
My answers to the naysayers is simply this:
FAFO.Some cultures are better than others.
I'm not going to get up on my high horse, because I live in the U.S. and I hear about parents doing all kinds of stupid and unthinkable things here.
Large Monitor Lizards:
Komodo dragon (Varanus komodoensis): The largest extant (living) monitor lizard, reaching up to 3 meters (10 feet) in length and weighing up to 150 kg (330 lb).
Asian water monitor (Varanus salvator): Can grow to 2.7 meters (9 feet).
Perentie (Varanus giganteus): Another large species, reaching up to 2.4 meters (8 feet).
Megalania (Varanus priscus): An extinct Australian species that likely exceeded 7 meters (23 feet) and weighed nearly 600 kg (1,300 pounds).
Small Monitor Lizards:
Not this one. We hear he was a whiz of a liz, if ever there was because because, an Asian water monitor most likely, man I hate reptiles, even lizards, slimy, forked tongue, id driven, egg-sucking, mammal-eating, legged snakes.
For sport they would challenge one another to swim underneath the US river boats when US soldiers came ashore. They actually had to swim between the mud and the hull of the boat, which must have been incredibly dangerous.
For entertainment there were troupes of performers that traveled through the jungle from village to village.
After the war she became one of the Vietnam "Boat People", and ended up in the US. When I knew her she was managing object-oriented software projects for a major US bank.
Quite the life story!
But you are overlooking the benefits of having them around! Water monitors, called biawak here in Indonesia, offer excellent pest control. I did for many years kill around ten cobras every year in my yard during the rainy season. The frogs were so thick that when it rained, I could not hear the television for the racket they made.
Around five years ago a family of biawak moved into a void in a wall, and since then I have spied not a single cobra in my yard, and the frogs are down by 90%. The rats as well have become rare. Mama and Papa are now more than five feet long, and the kids come and go. They do love an early morning swim in the pool, before the humans show up.
They are quite harmless, indeed they run away at the sight of a human. The neighbourhood kids catch them and tie a string on their tails to keep them as pets. The only times I was wary of them were when we had small puppies running around, but I suspect they may not be fond of furry meals.
Most likely this Thai baby was already dead and dumped. My house is completely open and I have never once seen the biawak enter the house.
“Most likely this Thai baby was already dead and dumped.”
.
Writing from the state with the most lizards, I’d agree.
Pythons are another matter...
Reptiles are not slimy.
...Except for certain dinosaurs in politics, of course.
“Tastes like chicken” went for little “long pig”. Nature - in a capsule.
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