10 monitor lizards eat otter carcass at Jurong Lake Gardens, netizens suggest it died beforehand

Large group of monitor lizards gather at Jurong Lake Gardens to feast on otter carcass

A large group of monitor lizards recently converged at Jurong Lake Gardens for an unusual ‘free’ meal — a dead otter.

10 monitor lizards converge on otter carcass at Jurong Lake Gardens

47-year-old engineer Yukiya Valentine told MS News that she was heading for a paddle boat session at Passion Wave at the gardens when she came across the scene.

Entering Jurong Lake Gardens from Lakeside MRT station last Saturday (4 Oct) morning, she noticed a crowd gathering a few hundred metres in.

Ms Valentine also spotted an “unusually large amount” of monitor lizards at the lakeside, counting 10 in total.

She initially assumed they were just “relaxing” together until she saw one of them drag the carcass of a dead otter. The carcass was an “object of interest” for all the monitor lizards, with two of them even getting into a fight.

“I was quite amazed at the number of monitor lizards there, and [their] size.” She told MS News that the lizards measured around 1m from head to tail. The dead otter was “bulky” as well, although not as big.

Ms Valentine explained that monitor lizards are a common sight in Jurong Lake Gardens, but otters are less so.

Even rarer were interactions between the two animals. 

Source: Yukiya Valentine on Facebook

Wildlife group netizens theorise that otter died from natural causes

In her Facebook post on the encounter, Ms Valentine wondered if the monitor lizards had killed the otter.

A wildlife enthusiast in the Singapore Wildlife Sightings group found it “unlikely”, as otters hunt in groups while monitor lizards usually do not.

“An otter is more than a match for a monitor lizard,” they claimed.

Another user suggested that the otter died from illness or old age, as it would usually have no trouble escaping monitor lizards.

One commenter remarked that “nothing goes to waste” in nature, with the otter’s carcass feeding the scavenging lizards.

Also read: Huge monitor lizard eats stingray at MacRitchie Reservoir, onlooker calls it ‘Nat Geo moment’

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Featured image adapted from Yukiya Valentine on Facebook.