Giant Monitor Lizard from Australia... Megalania

Megalania prisca vs Aboriginal Hunter

This lizard made a Kimodo Dragon look like an Anole.  Megalania was 23 feet or 7 meters long.  It weighed up to 1,370 lbs or 620 kg.  The lizard in this picture is not even one of the biggest.  The scientific name Megalania prisca means Ancient Great Roamer and it was Sir Richard Owen who named it.  He was the great anatomist of the 1800s.  He coined the name Dinosaur too.  Now don't you think that the name "Megalania" is a great name?  

It LOOKA like a dinosaur or  maybe a mammal-like reptile from before the dinosaurs, but Megalania was NOT a dinosaur nor was it a mammal-like reptile.  It lived much more recently than either of those life forms.  It appears to have been on the Earth from 2.5 million years ago to 50,000 years ago.  The ancient Australian Aborigines would have seen and dealt with this large reptiilian killer.  In fact, since it disappeared after Man arrived in Australia, some paleontologists and archaeologists think that maybe Man drove this monster to extiction.  That is why I drew an Aborigine hunter with it.  Bear in mind that this human is a full sized human.  The Megalania was truly a gigantic lizard!
I think that the ancient Australian Aborigines must have been amazing people.  

Can you imagine going up against anything this large.  It might have even been poisonous like its smaller relative the Komodo Dragon.  Komodo dragons have deadly bacteria that kills their prey after the prey animal is bitten.  Then when the Komodo Dragon eats the meat it gets reinfected with the deadly bacteria.   Of course the Komodo Dragon is immune to the deadly (for other animals) bacteria.  

NOTE:  This drawing is found in printable form by clicking on the correct button above:  either click on . . . . . All Printables. . . . or click on . . . . Paleontology.  In the All Printables page the new drawings are at the very bottom of the page so scroll down.  In the Paleontolgy page look under the heading "Animals of the Cenozoic."  By the way, feel free to add spots or stripes or whatever if you would like.  Look up reptile scale patterns and have fun with it when you color the giant lizard.