A bloated monitor lizard with a strange body shape baffled residents after it was spotted under a house in Indonesia.

The water lizard was resting under a wooden stilt house by the river in Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan province when a resident found it on September 11.

Its stomach was unusually swollen, giving it an extremely disproportionate body like a toy balloon.

Shocked resident Fudail said: "The lizard looks full, I don't know what it ate to give it an appearance like that."

Fudail did not attempt to catch the wild lizard as it may have been aggressive, but residents called on local officials to help them evacuate it from the settlements back to its habitat.

They said that the lizard did not appear to be pregnant as the shape and size was different to other gestating females.

The villagers who live in the area are used to seeing wild water lizards, but this one came out as surprising because of its stomach size.

Indonesia's largest reptile export commodity is water monitor lizarda, both in the form of skin and living . Locally, the monitor lizard is eaten as a delicacy and is believed to have medicinal value.