Terrified tourists ran from a beach after a monitor lizard was seen swimming in the sea.<br /><br />Beachgoers mistook the reptile for a crocodile as it glided through the surf on Saturday in Pattaya, Thailand, at 12.30pm.<br /><br />But the reptile had just wandered away from nearby woodland and was chilling out by taking a dip in the water.<br /><br />Lifeguards hauled the lizard from the sea before releasing him back into the wild.<br /><br />The Pattaya Marine Corps measured the creature and said it was about one-and-a-half metres long and weighed roughly 10kg.<br /><br />Onlooker Warapol Wattana said: ‘’There was a stampede to get off the beach because people thought it was a crocodile.<br /><br />‘’Lifeguards took the lizard out of the sea and then people and then people were posing with it for photographs.’'
