The name Varanus is a genus of lizard that encompasses the monitor lizards including the nearly mythical Komodo Dragon. The name of this work is a play on how similar Sarrus (the namesake of the sarrusophone) is to saurus (Greek for lizard and a common ending for scientific names of reptiles). The work, for Rufus Acosta, may well be the first solo work ever written for the Alto Sarrusophone an obscure member of a nearly extinct family.