Megalania
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 Megalania skeleton
Melbourne Museum |
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Extinct (fossil)
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| Megalania prisca (Richard Owen, 1859) |
Megalania is an extinct giant monitor lizard. It was one of the megafauna that roamed southern Australia, and appears to have become extinct around 40,000 years ago. It was once thought to belong to a distinct monotypic genus and called Megalania prisca, which means “ancient giant strider" (named in an attempt to illustrate the terrestrial nature of the animal [Owen, 1859]). Its placement as a valid genus remains controversial, with many authours preferring sinking the genus into Varanus (Molnar, 2004), which encompasses all monitor lizards. The first aboriginal settlers of Australia would certainly have encountered living Megalania. The local name in Western Australia for this animal is Bungarra.
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[edit] Size of the Megalania
Lack of enough fossil material has made it very hard to determine the exact dimensions of Megalania . (Molnar, 2004). Conservative estimates place the length of the largest individuals at a little over 7 meters (~23ft), with a maximum conservative weight of approximately 1,940 kg (4,268 lbs [Molnar, 2004]). Average sized specimens would have been a leaner, but still impressive, 320 kg (704 lbs). Megalania was the largest land-dwelling lizard to have ever lived, and a fearsome predator as well as a scavenger. Judging from its size, Megalania would feed mostly on medium to large sized animals, including any of the giant marsupials like Diprotodon along with other reptiles, small mammals, and birds and their eggs and chicks. It had heavily built limbs and body and a large skull complete with a small crest in between the eyes, and a jaw full of serrated blade-like teeth. Due to its size and similarities to the Komodo Dragon, a relationship between the two species has been suggested. In reality however, Megalania's closest relative is the perentie, Australia's largest lizard, not the Komodo Dragon despite being in the same family.
[edit] Live Megalania
There have been numerous reports and rumors of living Megalania in Australia, and occasionally New Guinea, as recently as the mid 1990s. Australian cryptozoologist Rex Gilroy has stated that Megalania is still alive today, and it is only a matter of time until one comes in. Aside from stories and eyewitness accounts, the only evidence that Megalania might still be alive today is plaster casts of possible Megalania footprints that Gilroy made in 1979.
[edit] References
- Molnar, R. 2004. Dragons in the Dust: The Paleobiology of the Giant Monitor Lizard Megalania. Indiana University Press.
- Owen, R. 1859. Description of Some Remains of a Gigantic Land-Lizard (Megalania prisca, Owen) from Australia. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. 149: 43-48.
- Wroe, S.: A review of terrestrial mammalian and reptilian carnivore ecology in Australian fossil faunas, and factors influencing their diversity: the myth of reptilian domination and its broader ramifications. Australian Journal of Zoology 50: 1–24. DOI:10.1071/ZO01053 PDF fulltext
