HABITAT

A Philippine eagle was tracked in Northern Cordillera carrying home a carcass of a bitatawa, according to a June 2018 article by Tatiana Abano-sarigumba, Jayson Ibanez, Rafe M. Brown and Luke J. Welton in the Herpetological Review. The lizard’s remains were discovered inside the nest of a Philippine eagle in Apayao, less than 100 kilometers from the Northern Sierra Madre mountain ranges, the only place where the monitor is known to exist.

The discovery of both the Philippine eagle and the bitatawa, both forest specialists, in the Cordillera mountain range indicates that the forest ecosystem in this area is thriving and is able to support both species. Biodiversity conservation may be more effective if it moved away from isolated pockets of study and involved coordination between different protected areas, such as the Cordilleras and the Sierra Madres.