Cats are the most underrated predator on the planet.
They can be and are far more dangerous than almost any animal close to or sometimes many times their weight or size.
Ive seen reactions from large monitors, snakes, to cats, small, medium, and large housecats, they avoid cats.
I know of a large male nile that rushed at a small kitten once, mouth wide open, stopped right in front of the kitten, sniffed it once and the lizard almost broke his cage in half trying to hide so fast from this tiny kitten.
I have a very big albig, and a big housecat, its possible that a medium sized cat or small cat could be killed by a large enough monitor, but very unlikely that any monitor short of a komodo would ever eat a cat unless possibly it was a dead cut up carcass beforehand, and that monitor was very very hungry.
I know of a few instances where monitor keepers posted here after not taking advice about how dangerous cats can be, and ended up rushing injured medium sized monitors to the vet because the cat played with them.
I saw a female housecat kill a groundhog larger than herself once, and the owner has videotapes of more being killed by her.
I think very few monitors anywhere could even swallow a whole small or medium sized cat.
Here we have on occasion eastern coyotes (almost twice the size of their western counterpart) that hunt stray cats only when food is scarce and they have pups to feed.
I think people try to blow things out of proportion when they sensationalize. Feral and stray cats are everywhere worldwide, so why not use them as victims to attempt to back up stories about local monsters. If they are everywhere worldwide, what does that tell you, they the most sucessful invasive species, and one of the most effective predators anywhere.
This is a large housecat, this is a large monitor,

and one with a medium sized monitor, a 4ft flaviargus.

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