Megalania (Varanus prisca)

[epaiva]

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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 it appears to have desappeared around 40.000 years ago. The first Aboriginal settlers of Australia may have encountered living Megalania.
Megalania is landbased 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.
ralph Molnar in 2004 determined a range of possibles sized 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. If it tail to body proportions were more similar to that of the Komodo dragon then a length of around 7 metres is more likely. Using 7 m as the maximum length Molnar estimated the average weight of the lizard at 320 kilograms and 1940 kilograms as the maximum.
This is more than  twice the length of their closes living relative the Komodo dragon of eatern Indonesia.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Credit of pictures to @paleontologyworld_com and to @dino_gem

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[epaiva]

Closeup of Megalania skull, it neasures about 74 cm long
Credit to @rezaakram

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[epaiva]

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[Spalea]

Megalania surprising one of his plausible prey, a geant bird (diprotodon, dromornis)...

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[DinoFan83]

I think Varanus priscus is a very real contender for largest terrestrial non-dinosaurian predator. 2 tons is pretty impressive! Reply