A day after cyclone ‘Yaas’ wreaked havoc on the seabord of India, a video of a monitor lizard slowly crawling on the waterlogged streets of Kolkata went viral on social media.
The video of the monitor lizard casually strolling on unidentified streets of the city has left people shocked. The tweet claimed that the location of the video is Bangur Avenue in Kolkata. According to the social media users, the monitor lizard might have come from a nearby canal after heavy rains overflowed it.
However, a senior forest official told One India that the video might be old. When the team went to Bangur to rescue it, they didn’t find the monitor lizard, he added.
After the video went viral, Praveen Angusamy from the Indian Forest Service reposted the video on Twitter asking residents to call the forest department if they find wildlife in the city. He tweeted, “This Water or Bengal monitor lizard was spotted in Dum Dum, Kolkata after heavy rains from #CycloneYaas. If you see any wildlife, please inform the forest dept or district admin immediately. Do not try to catch it or try to kill the animal. A safe distance is always advisable."
After a user mistook the monitor lizard for a komodo dragon, Angusamy explained, “No. Komodo is an Island in Indonesian group of islands. The Komodo monitors are the largest monitors & hence called Komodo Dragons. They are endemic to Indonesia. The one in the video is Bengal or Water monitor. It's relatively smaller in size when compared to Komodo Dragons.”
As of now, at least one crore people are affected and three lakh houses are damaged in West Bengal due to the impact of cyclone ‘Yaas’, according to Chief Minister Mamta Banerjee.