if ($var=~ m/@list/ ){ print 'ok'; }

##</code><code>##

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use warnings;

my @list = qw(frog turtle tadpole);
my $var = "turtle";

if ("@list" =~ /\b$var\b/) {
        print 'yup';
} # using quotes, we coerce the array to act as a string

else {
        print 'nope';
}