- Where to see one
- 3 U.S. zoos in our directory hold perentie, confirmed against each zoo's own animal list.
Conservation status
Not Evaluated
This species has not been assessed for the IUCN Red List, so it sits outside the threat scale entirely.
About the perentie
The perentie is Australia's largest lizard and one of the largest living lizards in the world. It lives in the arid areas of Western Australia, South Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland, among rocky outcrops and gorges. Adults can reach 2.5 m in length and 20 kg, and are lean for a large monitor, with a cream and black reticulated head and brown rosettes on the back. An apex predator, it eats reptiles, small mammals and birds, scavenges carrion, and even kills young kangaroos. It is shy and often retreats unseen, and can dig a burrow in minutes. It often stands tall on its hind legs and tail to get a better view of the terrain, a posture called tripoding.
Perentie facts
- Perenties dig a shelter burrow in only minutes.
- They eat other monitor lizards, and a 2 m perentie has been recorded eating a smaller perentie.
- They can kill kangaroos and tear apart those too large to swallow whole.
- Coastal and island perenties eat sea turtle eggs and hatchlings and ambush gulls from under vehicles.
Where to see perentie in the U.S.
3 zoos across 3 states
Find the closest one
Rank the 2 zoos holding perentie by how far they are from you. Your location is used in your browser to sort this list and is never sent to us.
1 more zoo holds perentie but has no coordinates on file yet, so it isn't ranked here. It's in the full list below.
California· 1
Florida· 1
Virginia· 1
AZAThe Association of Zoos and Aquariums. Accredited members have passed an independent inspection of animal care and welfare, safety, conservation and education, repeated every five years. Many smaller facilities never apply, so “not accredited” isn't a verdict on its own. What accreditation means · How we check this
Built from each zoo's own published animal list.
