Giant lizard in Florida stuns onlookers

A huge lizard was witnessed wandering on a Hillsboro Boulevard in Deerfield Beach Florida according to several pictures and videos surfaced on social media.

A user on social media, whose profile name is Renee Aland uploaded the moments on Facebook in which the giant lizard can be seen crawling on the sides of the road coming out from bushes.

In a video, a person can be heard saying: "He’s huge. He’s just strutting across the road. He’s heading to the other side of the road."

When a child asked if she should get closer to the 5-foot-long reptile, an adult replied: "Nope, just stay in the car."

Aland wrote on Facebook: "Did a double take today driving down Hillsboro [Boulevard] today…. Called FWC and reported with the location… this Asian Water Monitor was around 5ft long… I had been sitting there waiting to see it again as they wouldn’t even make a report without photographic proof. It was seen coming out of the woods near the canal on Hillsboro Blvd behind the Kia dealership and just south of Bamboo [road]."

Aland told WBBH-TV that she at first thought the lizard was an alligator.

"When we got closer, I looked, and I saw his tongue, [a] lizard tongue coming out, and I was like, ‘Oh, crap, that’s not a gator!'"

Aland stated: "It was really cool, never seen anything like that before, but the concern is what it is doing to our native wildlife. Obviously, they’re pretty voracious eaters, so I can’t imagine they’re good for our ecosystem."

The massive lizard is native to southern and Southeast Asia. According to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the Asian monitor is common as a pet and not illegal to own.