Megalania (Varanus prisca) was a giant monitor lizard that lived in southern Australia. It was part of a species of megafauna that lived during the Pleistocene, and appears to have disappeared around 40,000 years ago. The first Aboriginal settlers of Australia may have encountered living Megalania.[1]
| Megalania Temporal range: Late Pleistocene | |
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| Megalania skeletal reconstruction on Melbourne Museum steps | |
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| Genus: | Varanus |
| Binomial name | |
| Varanus priscus Owen 1859 | |
Megalania is the largest land-based lizard known to have existed. Judging from its size, Megalania would have fed mostly upon medium- to large-sized animals, including any of the giant marsupials like Diprotodon .
Size
Ralph Molnar in 2004, determined a range of possible sizes for Megalania. He did this by scaling up from dorsal vertebrae, after he determined a relationship between dorsal vertebrae length and total body length. If it had a long thin tail like the Lace monitor (Varanus varius), then it would have reached a length of 7.9 metres (26 ft). If its tail-to-body proportions were more similar to that of the Komodo dragon, then a length of around 7 metres (23 ft) is more likely. Using 7 m as the maximum length, Molnar estimated the average weight of the lizard at 320 kilograms (710 lb), and 1,940 kilograms (4,280 lb) as the maximum.[2]
This is twice the length of their closest living relative, the Komodo dragon of eastern Indonesia.[3]
References
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