Borneo is place to all sorts of weird and tremendous plant and beast species . While some of them are famous worldwide , like the preservation symbol that is theBornean orangutanor the lesser - known critically endangeredBornean elephant , some species are a deal more unmanageable to find . Meet the very shy earless monitor lizard .

The earless monitoring gadget lounge lizard ( Lanthanotus borneensis)is only detect in the northwest Sarawak realm on the island of Borneo , where it is the sole living extremity of the Lanthanotidae family and shares its stock with genuine monitor lizards .

The lizards live a semi - aquatic nocturnal lifestyle , hunting angleworm , pediculosis pubis , and siluriform fish . In the daylight they relax in semi - torpor inburrows in the grunge . They are typically cogitate to prefer lowland forests with access to fresh water such as streams , though reports suggest that they can dwell rice field .

The species is striking , looking like a prehistoric puppet withincredible blue eyes ; the lizards do n’t in reality have ear openings , but they can hear ( they are also not the onlyearless lizardout there ) . They can grow to 50 centimeter long ( 1.6 metrical foot ) . Their tails are enunciate to have some sort of gripping power and could hold on to offshoot or roots in the water to forbid them being tangle away .

Between 1877 and 1961 only 12 specimens of these lizards were discovered . Classed as " endangered " , theIUCNexplains that in 2004 , Eric Pianka observe that “ only about 100 of these lizard have ever been pull together ” . However , in 2014 , rumor pass around that around 36 live lizards were in thepet tradein Germany .

Scientists suggest that the coinage is relatively rarefied , but specimens have seemed to reverberate up in the pet trade across multiple different countries . The metal money was only discover in 1877 , but is now alsothreatenedby both lumber practice and deforestation to change over home ground to agricultural land , as well as clime change .

There is also some disceptation over whether the species can be classified as venomous . The earless lounge lizard does possess glands along its jaw that secrete a fluid contain kallikrein enzymes . However , one paperargues that this is not postulate for prey seizure or defense .

The mystery of the earless lizard besiege it , leading some to knight it the " holy grail " of herpetology .