The Giant Monsters of Herpetology Tour

A look at some of the reptile and amphibian specimens that have inspired some of film and television’s biggest, baddest monsters with Herpetology Collections Manager Neftali Camacho.

Ceacilian in a jar held by Neftali Camacho

Updated October 3, 2024

Natural history museums like NHM have pretty big jobs. Through vast collections of specimens, these institutions serve as libraries for nothing less than the story of life on Earth.

"Collections help us to better understand and protect the living world today," says Neftali Camacho, Senior Herpetology Collections Manager at NHM. They’re priceless records of the past that can help researchers understand the future of our world. That feels like a big enough job on its own, but those same collections of natural life have inspired worlds of giant monsters and dragons. Camacho took us on a brief tour of this intersection of fantasy, horror, and museum science.

Herpetology Collections Manager Neftali Camacho in his office
Among other duties, Herpetology Senior Collections Manager Neftali Camacho guides visitors through NHM's massive collection of reptiles and amphibians.
Photo by Tyler Hayden

In preparation for the 2012 film Pacific Rim and 2014’s Godzilla, character designers visited the Herpetology Collections for a closer look at real-life reptile and amphibian anatomy to inform their creations. Despite being super cute, snapping turtles (Chelydra serpentina) have helped create the creatures terrorizing the big screen.

Snapping turtle collection specimen from NHM's Herpetology Department
A common snapping turtle (Chelydra serpentina) specimen from the collection. Despite being pretty cute, these reptiles have inspired some pretty killer kaiju. 
Photo by Tyler Hayden

While juvenile snapping turtles are adorable, these reptiles can reach impressive if not kaiju sizes of around one foot in length, and the biggest recorded individual tipped the scales at 75 pounds, but it's their intimidating jaw, distinct scaling, and pointy scutes—the spiky structures on the shell or carapace—that have made snapping turtles such an inspiration for movie monsters.

Otachi from Pacific Rim
The kaiju Otachi's armored back is clearly inspired by the snapping turtle's distinct shell.

It’s easy to see how different parts of the snapping turtle informed the long neck and pronounced, interlinked scaling on the back of the giant monster Otachi. Of course, there’s a lot happening with every kaiju in the movie when it comes to design (this same monster has retractable pterosaur-like wings).

If you’re thinking the snapping turtle still looks familiar from your nightmares, you might have seen something like it bursting from the desert ground in search of human flesh. The Precambrian life forms stalking the human stars of the Tremors franchise are also based on this turtle’s fierce beak. 

Snapping turtle skull next to a picture of a graboid from the Tremors film
The jaw shape of the graboids from the Tremors movies is unmistakably based on a snapping turtle's mouth.
Photo by Tyler Hayden

Even though they’re not as scary as the graboids from Tremors, snapping turtles are at the top of the food chain in their ecosystems from the East Coast to the Rockies. Despite a monstrous reputation, there’s no record of these freshwater turtles biting off any human’s fingers or toes (on the other hand, fingers have been lost to their larger cousins, alligator snapping turtles). As omnivores, they basically eat everything else, feasting on fish, other amphibians, reptiles, unwary birds, and really anything that they can fit in their jaws. Snapping turtles are not native to the state, but individuals have been recorded on iNaturalist. 

“It was no surprise since turtles have been used in the past for monster design, going back to the 1960s with Gamera the Giant Monster. Gamera is essentially a giant turtle!” says Camacho. 

gamera screenshot from wikipedia
The character Gamera, from the 1965 film Gamera, the Giant Monster.

“For Godzilla 2014, the designers were very much interested in the sungazer lizard,” says Camacho. “They were drawn to its large armor-like spiky scales.” The creature creators visiting the collections decided not to arm Godzilla with the intimidating scales of the sungazer lizard, but one of them would go on to help design the iconic dragons from Game of Thrones, taking inspiration from the sungazer lizard.

Sun Gazer Lizard basking from iNaturalist Photo 108217960, no rights reserved, uploaded by Oliver Angus
A sun gazer lizard exhibiting the behavior that earned the namesake. 
Photo observation by iNaturalist user Oliver Angus

Sungazers go by many other common names—among them, the giant girdled lizard and the giant dragon lizard—but their solar moniker comes from a penchant for raising their body towards the sun as if, well, gazing, an activity which helps regulate their body temperature. While it might be hard to imagine these little reptiles darkening the skies of Westeros, take a closer look and the similarity to G.O.T. dragons is unmistakable. 

Sun Gazer Lizard held by Herpetology Collections Manager Neftali Camacho
The sun gazer's spiky scales make perfect features for giant dragons.
Photo by Tyler Hayden

Sungazers are heavily armored, and their beautiful scaling translates perfectly to the show’s dragons. The details from these real-life reptiles helped ground the visual style of the winged monstrosities. Sungazers' scientific name even carries a high fantasy pedigree: Smaug giganteus, a reference to the villainous dragon from JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit. 

While the monsters they inspired brought a fantasy world to its knees, these creatures face very real threats from the destruction of their grassland habitats in South Africa and the illegal pet trade. Collections like NHM’s help researchers keep track of and study vulnerable species as records of their existence through time. 

Camacho had no shortage of suggestions and ideas of what other famous fiends might have been inspired by real-life reptiles and amphibians (if not the actual specimens in NHM’s collections), but he specifically recognized the sandworms from the cult-classic Beetlejuice (and the sequel Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice) in a limbless amphibian you’ve probably never seen. 

Herpetology Collections Manager Neftali Camacho holds a jar of Caecilians next to a sand worm from Beetlejuice
Were Beetlejuice's sand worms inspired by this cryptic group of amphibians? There's no evidence record of that from Tim Burton, but the similarities are definitely there. No matter what, caecilians are definitely worthy of the silver screen.
Photo by Tyler Hayden

Caecilians (sounds like ‘see sill yunz’) do have a certain resemblance to the sandworms stalking the afterlife in the film, and they’re highly adapted to burrowing (but some are aquatic). They may not match the gargantuan sizes on screen, but the biggest known species reach up to five feet in length, and they’re really unlike anything else. 

A Gaboon Caecilian uploaded by iNaturalist user Marius Burger
A Gaboon Caecilian (Geotrypetes seraphini) displays sand-wormy features despite being an amphibian. The white stripes that look like wormy segmentation are actually skin folds.
Observation photo uploaded by iNaturalist user Marius Burger

Their distinctly wormy lines are actually ring-shaped folds of skin. Their eyes range from tiny to non-existent (Caecilians translates to ‘blind ones’), and they have tentacles between their eyes and nostrils that scientists think help them smell. Caecilians represent one of the three modern orders of amphibians along with frogs and salamanders, but their underground lifestyle makes them difficult to study. Collections like NHM’s let researchers and artists get an up-close look at animals like these without expensive and sometimes dangerous expeditions.

The next time you take in a creature feature, pay close attention to the jaws, scales, and claws on screen (if it’s not too scary). There’s likely a real-life inspiration crawling, digging, or swimming in our real world.