Varanus brevicauda I have never encountered this diminutive monitor lizard active above ground; the vast majority of specimens were collected in pit traps. During August 1967, two were dug up in shallow burrows (one of these must have been active immediately prior to being exhumed as there were crisp fresh tail lash marks at the burrow's entrance and the lizard had a body temperature of 35.4o C, ten degrees above ambient air temperature). Several specimens were trapped at Red Sands during 1989-91 and a few more were captured in 1995. Another 30 specimens were trapped during Novembers and Decembers of 1992 and 1995 on the B-area, which is a flat sandplain covered with large, long unburned, clumps of spinifex, possibly the preferred habitat of brevicauda. One female weighing 9.1 gm contained an adult 1.5 ml Ctenotus calurus; this prey item constituted 16.5% of the brevicauda's body weight. The smallest male with enlarged testes was 82 mm SVL and the smallest gravid female was 94 mm SVL. World's smallest monitor lizard, actual size,---> a neonate Varanus brevicauda (SVL = 52 mm, wt 1.4 gms). I pit trapped hatchlings during January and February 1996 (SVLs ranged from 52-53 mm; weights from 1.3 to 1.4 grams). The typical monitor lizard threat posture and behaviour has been conserved in the evolution of these tiny monitors, which hiss and lunge with throat inflated as if they are a serious threat. To read about other Varanus in the Great Victoria desert of Western Australia, click Desert Varanus.