(FLORIDA) — Another giant reptile is clawing its way toward disrupting the South Florida ecosystem as an invasive species.

The Nile monitor — a semi-aquatic lizard equipped with razor claws that can grow up to 6 feet — has been establishing populations in the area since the 1980s, according to ecology experts.

Endemic to the Nile river delta in Sub-Saharan Africa, the continent’s largest lizards arrived in Florida via the pet trade, through both intentional and unintentional release, Frank Mazzotti, a professor of wildlife ecology at the University of Florida, told ABC News.

“They’re very wild, they’re very active,” Mazzotti said. “They don’t make good pets at all. They don’t calm down.”

The temperament of the giant lizards also makes them difficult to catch. Mazzotti described Nile monitors as “very strong” and “very aggressive.”

The reptiles will put up a fight and even bite humans who attempt to make contact with them, Mazzotti said.

“They’re crazy,” he said. “They’re very hard to handle, and you have to take great care that they don’t escape and that you don’t get bit.”

Monitor lizards are one of the high priority nonnative species for removal due to their potential impacts on native wildlife, Lisa Thompson, a communications specialist for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) Division of Habitat and Species Conservation, told ABC News via email.

Current management approaches focus on containing established populations and preventing the establishment of new populations, as well as recurring surveys and removals, Thompson noted.

Nile monitors are now established in Lee and Palm Beach Counties, with multiple sightings in Broward County as well. The FWC is also monitoring observations of the species in Miami-Dade County, according to Thompson.

The state’s humidity allows the Nile monitors to thrive, Mazzotti said.

“Their habitat requirements are met,” he said. “The climate’s a match.”

In addition, their diverse diet and ability to travel over land and in fresh and saltwater allows for potential establishment throughout Florida, especially in coastal areas with mangroves and salt marshes.

South Florida’s extensive canal system can provide ample corridor, and they have a high reproduction rate, according to the FWC.

The giant lizards are “generalist” feeders, meaning they aren’t picky about what they eat, Mazzotti said.

They have been observed to eat crabs, crayfish, mussels, snails, slugs, termites, caterpillars, beetles, spiders, grasshoppers and crickets, fish, frogs, toads, lizards, turtles, snakes, young crocodiles and other reptiles, birds and their eggs and small mammals, according to the FWC. They can hunt for prey on the surface, below ground and in trees.

Some researchers have even observed them eating iguana eggs, Mazzotti noted.

“They don’t care what they eat,” he said.

Due to their generalist diet, the invasive reptile could impact state and federally listed threatened species, including sea turtles, wading birds, gopher tortoises and the American crocodile, according to the FWC.

Biologists and ecologists are also concerned about burrowing owls, as their largest population also occurs where the largest known Nile monitor population also occurs.

Nile monitors are not protected in Florida, except by anti-cruelty laws, and can be humanely killed on private property with the landowner’s permission, according to the FWC.

It was added to Florida’s Prohibited Nonnative Species List in April 2021, which limits possession of Nile monitors for the purposes of research, educational exhibition, control or eradication.

Nile monitors are often olive green to black in color and have stripes on their jaw and head. They also have yellow-ish V-shaped stripes that begin at the base of its skull and neck and transform into “bands” along their back, according to the FWC.

They are often seen in or close to water and basking on rocks and branches, wildlife experts say.

The reptiles are usually active during the day and sleep on branches or submerged in water at night.

When temperatures drop, Nile monitors will retreat to burrows to keep warm, the FWC noted.

While they have not yet had demonstrated impacts on the ecosystem, it’s important to keep populations of Nile monitors under control before they disrupt an already delicate environment, Mazzotti said.

“You cannot wait until an invasive species has demonstrated its impact upon the ecosystem,” he said. “Because if you do, then it’s too late.”

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(PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla.) — Christy Luna disappeared without a trace over 40 years ago at the age of 8. Now, authorities in Florida say they have identified a new person of interest in the cold case.

Christy went missing on May 27, 1984, while going to a general store less than two blocks from her home in Greenacres to buy cat food, according to the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office. No one knows what happened to her after she bought the food for her two cats, and a massive search at the time didn’t turn up anything. 

The sheriff’s office has followed multiple leads over the decades since and has named several persons of interest in the case, but no one has been charged in connection with her disappearance.

On Wednesday, authorities announced they are looking for information on a new person of interest — Warren Gilbert Williams Jr., a convicted child sex offender who died in 2016.

Sgt. Chris Karpinski, with the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office’s cold case unit, said they received an anonymous tip last year that Williams was remodeling a home near the general store the day Christy went missing.

“He left that home and his remodeling efforts to go buy cigarettes at Belks General Store and he never returned,” Karpinski said during a press briefing on Wednesday.

“That alone, interesting information, but we have a lot of that information through the years where somebody was seen in the area, and this and that,” he continued. 

But Williams, he said, has a “peculiar past of sexual activity with children.” He was convicted of sexual battery on a child under 12 and lewd and lascivious molestation and was imprisoned in Florida from 2007 to 2013, according to Karpinski. After finishing that sentence, he went to prison in Alabama, where he was wanted for sexual abuse of a child, Karpinski said.

“The suspicion existed through this circle of people that Mr. Williams knew through the years, and they had discussed the possibility of him being involved with Christy’s disappearance,” Karpinski said.

Detectives also learned through the anonymous tip that Williams, who lived in what is now known as Lake Worth Beach at the time, installed a concrete pad in his backyard a week after Christy went missing.

Authorities got permission from the current homeowners to search the property and last month excavated the yard, Karpinski said.

“Unfortunately, we found nothing,” Karpinski said, saying there were “mixed emotions” on the development.

“We wanted to find something, but yet, finding something meant that, you know, we had bad news, at least it was for me,” he said. “So there is still hope that Christy either is out there or somebody is out there that knows where she is, whether she is still with us on Earth or has passed.”

Karpinski said there currently is no physical or testimonial evidence that links Williams to Christy’s disappearance.

“We want to learn more about him,” Karpinski said. “I know it’s a long time ago. People, friends, neighbors, witnesses that day who think maybe they saw him, please come forward.”

Williams, who was 46 years old at the time Christy disappeared, died in prison in 2016, according to Karpinski.

Authorities haven’t ruled out any other persons of interest named in the case, according to investigator Bill Springer, who has been investigating Christy’s disappearance since the sheriff’s office assumed the case in 1984.

Springer also urged anyone with information to come forward, even after all this time.

“I want people to come forward. I’m not going to question why you didn’t come forward, because I don’t care,” he said. “My job is to find Christy, not to judge people because they didn’t come forward.”

“So if you’ve got information and you’ve been sitting on it for 30 years, 40 years, I don’t care,” he said. “Bring it out and we’ll look at it, see what we can do with it.”

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