Horror in Bangkok: Monitor Lizard feeds on abandoned baby’s body

In a horrifying incident in Bangkok, Thailand, a new born baby's body was partially eaten by a monitor lizard. Police are searching for the mother of new born baby who they believed might have abandoned the child.The incident has caused horror and outrage across the country.According to local media reports, one of the residents from Samut Prakan, witnessed the reptile eating the remains of a baby around noon on Tuesday. He got scared and immediately contacted the police.Kittisak Phongphipat, one of the first to witness the incident, told the Thai Examiner news website that he initially mistook the baby for something else.“I thought it was a fish washed up from the rain,” he said.“Then I looked closer. It was a baby. I felt sick to my stomach because the baby had been torn to pieces by the animal.”After the arrival of police and rescue volunteer group Nakon45, they found the 2-metre (6.5-foot) reptile clenching the lifeless body in its jaws. By then, the infant’s head had already been detached from its body and was lying on the road.Rescuers tried to retrieve the lower part of the child's body, but the lizard grabbed it and hid it under a nearby house.“The body was very small,” one of the rescuers, Thanathorn Saelim, told KhaoSod newspaper. “We couldn’t even determine its gender.”Since there was no noticeable smell, he believed the body hadn't started decomposing.The body was sent for autopsy. The reports revealed that it might have been there for more than two days. A DNA test will confirm the identity of mother and will also determine whether the baby, thought to be full-term, was stillborn or left alive.Describing it as a heinous incident, Bang Kaew police chief Preecha Damrongwong said, "This is a criminal act. If the baby was born alive and abandoned, there will be serious charges".He assured that the investigation team’s priority was to locate the person who abandoned the child.Investigators speculated that the baby’s mother might have abandoned it because she could not care for it, as reported by the Bangkok Post newspaper.Another possibility is that the mother may be an illegal migrant.Reacting to the incident, Supansa Rattanachai, a 43-year-old food vendor, stated that she couldn’t sleep after hearing what had happened.She said, “I’ve never seen anything like this. Even if the baby died, how could anyone leave it out like that?”A wildlife expert said it was unlikely that the baby had been alive.Anucha Thavorn, a wildlife biologist at Kasetsart University, said, “Monitor lizards will scavenge [for] meat if hungry. This lizard was not hunting. It was feeding on something already dead or still.”