Megalania - Australia's lizard king

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalania

Megalania (Megalania prisca or Varanus priscus) was a very large goanna or monitor lizard, now extinct. It was part of a megafaunal assemblage that inhabited southern Australia during the Pleistocene.

Megalania is believed to have disappeared around 40,000 years ago, but not before the first Aboriginal settlers of Australia may have encountered them.

Wikipedia recently uploaded some interesting images of Megalania, which we're sharing with you this week.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalania

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalania

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalania

Is Megalania still roaming the Australian outback? Some Australians think so...

Megalania puts in appearance at Vic exhibition

A skeleton of prehistoric reptile Megalania was on display at the recent Sci-Spy! event held at Monash University Gippsland to celebrate National Science Week in the region.

Megalania was a six-metre long lizard similar to the komodo dragon which roamed central Australia about 40,000 years ago, which scientists believed claimed victims as an ambush predator.

Monash Science Centre scientist Dr Corrie Williams described Megalania as “big, impressive and heavy” and said the lizard had a tendency to provoke a response in children.

In addition to Megalania, the skeleton of the prehistoric bird Bullockornis will also be on display, which was about 2.5 metres tall and weighed about 500 kilograms.

Jurassic park in a suburban Sydney garden

Trespassers beware! Spiteri’s Ambarvale residence is guarded by Jurassic era dinosaurs. 

The south-western Sydney self-taught paleo artist has been crafting dinosaurs and exhibiting them in his front yard for the past 10 years. His latest artworks - Jurassic king allosaurus and venomous dilophosaurus - have been a magnet during the school holidays.

While a lack of room has temporarily put a halt on more dinosaurs, Mr Spiteri has lodged a proposal with Campbelltown library to have prehistoric creatures placed on show from the ancient Indigenous period that include the prehistoric lizard, megalania.

New species of giant monitor lizard discovered

A giant species of monitor lizard that lives in trees has been discovered in the forests of the Northern Philippines, scientists have revealed.

The 6ft 6in-long brightly-coloured lizard is a secretive, fruit-eating species which was found in the forests of the heavily populated and largely deforested Luzon Island.

The discovery of the monitor lizard was described as an 'unprecedented surprise' by scientists.

The species (Varanus bitatawa) is restricted to the forests of the central and northern Sierra Madre range, where biologists have conducted relatively few surveys of reptiles and amphibians.

Read more: 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1264010/New-species-giant-lizard-discovered-Philippine- forests.html#ixzz0knj1x2io

Megalania centrepiece of Gondwana Exhibition

A monstrous replica Megalania skeleton helps to form the centrepiece of a collection of flora and fauna specimens from 3.8 billion years ago to the present, which has gone on display this week at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT).

Arts and Museums Minister Gerry McCarthy said the Wildlife of Gondwana exhibition - presented by the Monash University’s Monash Science Centre – showcases the research by some of the world’s leading palaeontologists.

“Fossils, including dinosaurs, will be some of the key attractions at MAGNT during the next few months,” Mr McCarthy said. “Wildlife of Gondwana is a rare opportunity for Territorians to see fossils from Australia, Antarctica and South America, and understand more about the super-continent Gondwana.”

Gondwana once included most of the southern hemisphere landmasses about 500 million years ago before it began to break-up during the mid-Jurassic period about 167 million years ago.

“The exhibition includes more than 130 fossil specimens and full replica skeletons of the Giant Lizard Megalania and the Territory’s very own flightless bird Bullockornis,” Mr McCarthy said. “This giant bird lived about 15 million years ago, standing 250cm tall and weighing up to 250kg.

“Wildlife of Gondwana also reveals the Territory’s rich fossil record with specimens from Central Australia’s premier megafauna fossil site, the Alcoota Scientific Reserve, on display along with a short documentary highlighting the significant research taking place at Alcoota.

“Visitors to MAGNT will also get to see a six metre long Jurassic dinosaur Cryolophosaurus which lived in what is now Antarctica.”

Complementing the exhibition is a cycads display by the Northern Territory Herbarium titled Living Gondwana: Cycads of the NT. Cycads are the ultimate living fossil, having overseen the rise and fall of the dinosaurs and the rise of mammals over 250 million years.

It's not so hard to believe in Megalania

Occasionally, when a species colonises an island, it undergoes ‘insular gigantism’ and grow to several times their initial size. Until recently, this theory was used to account for the large size of the Komodo dragon (pictured above).

But it turns out dragons are not an oddity of island evolution – they’re one of the few surviving relics from an era when large-bodied carnivores roamed Australia and Southeast Asia. Three sites have been discovered across Queensland that contain fossils of dragons the same size as the creatures we see today, says Scott Hocknull, the senior curator of geosciences at the Queensland Museum. 

“Our data reject the long-held perception that V. komodoensis became a giant because of insular evolution,” Hocknull and colleagues wrote in the journal PLoS One in 2009. “The Komodo dragon first evolved on mainland Australia, probably in response to the Megafauna,” he says. The Australian fossils range from 3.5 million to 300,000 years old, though dragons might have been around until the Megafauna extinction 50,000 years ago.

About 3.5 millions years ago, dragons were the dominant lizard in Australia. Then, 1.8 million years ago, an even more fearsome lizard emerged; Megalania (Varanus prisca) could grow up to 5.5 m long and weigh 600 kg.