What the Hell was Megalania?!
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- Опубликовано: 6 фев 2025
- Dani O'Callaghan here, filling in for a brief video while we're still catching up!
This 'What the Hell is it?!" was submitted by Hedrigal on our Patreon.
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To make it clear V. Komodoensis does NOT have fangs or venom glands. It may not even have toxic bacteria in its saliva. That is under study at this time. It may all be an urban legend.
The problem is the definition of "venom" is vague. Varanids have toxic compounds in their saliva, but no advanced delivery system.
But even venom is just highly changed saliva with an advanced delivery system. So at what point does it become venom.
With paleontology a lot of people support the clade Toxicofera, but hich suggests venom evolved once, and all clades within Toxicofera either have venom, or secondarily lost venom.
But it's not fully supported. Each phylogeny is just one hypothesis. And can be tested again with other methods. But based on what is out now, I would call it an early derived venom, and that it does count, even without advanced delivery methods.
Apparently its saliva just has some pretty good anticoagulant compounds. Now, this is obviously nothing compared to the potent hemotoxins found in the venoms of vipers, which cause cellular death and internal bleeding, but it is enough to keep the bleeding from the REALLY NASTY bite of the dragon going for longer than it normally should. So the prey animal dies from external blood loss rather than the direct effect of the saliva. So yeah...depends on how you define "venom".
@@RaptorChatter This is a fair point, and ultimately it sort of comes down to a semantics argument. IIRC though I think it was discovered that there seems to be some sort of anti-coagulant factor in the saliva of Varanids, don't quote me on that, I might be misremembering, but assuming that is true then "venom" as we understand it probably wouldn't have been necessary for an animal the size of Megalania to bring down much larger prey than itself. With the amount of tissue damage the bite would do combined with some sort of anti-coagulant in the saliva the prey would have likely died from blood loss and/or shock alone. All of that aside, it's a fascinating creature and I hope we are able to find more specimens to get a better idea of just how it looked and behaved in life.
Most varanids do, in fact, produce venom. And they do have glands in the lower jaws that produce a toxic anticoagulant, so I say it meets the definition of possessing venom glands.
Wasnt there a study that disproved the myth that venomos Komodo Dragons are a myth? I think the newest science points to them being indeed venomous.
Megalania is a large reptile that can be found in caves most of the time in caves with artifacts that are used to kill a variety of the the bosses used to unlock tek grams
Lol. I just tamed one,😆
I should tame one they are one of the dinos I've ignored in ark
You forgot to mention that they like to sit on the celing and jump at you from above if you get to close
You all forgot that you can use it to walk on celling and walls too!
@@hayabusaorlovina2761 You also forgot to mention the megarabies! The moment you get bitten without an antidote, it's over :)
Really enjoyed this!
Thoroughly enjoyed the presentation.
Thanks! My wife is very conscientious, because she isn't as familiar with the background as geologists, so we appreciate this!
@@RaptorChatter That's all good! She did very well in spite of that.
There's quite a few mythical giant monitor lizards in Australian Aboriginal mythology. One that comes to my mind is the benevolent Dirawong of the Bundjalung Nation of NSW. Unlike other Aboriginal myths & beliefs, the famous Rainbow Serpent is Dirawong malevolent enemy.
Yep we found a few more records like that about 20 minutes before recording, so we just kinda stuck with what we had
I will forever be fascinated by the question of how such myths get passed down. Sometimes it's pretty clearly fossils. Sometimes it's pretty clearly just coincidental. But so often, it really makes me wonder whether an oral tradition talking about certain creatures got passed down for generations and mythologized. If there's an afterlife of any kind, i really hope i get to delve into the past and get those answers there, because i know i'll never find them in my lifetime and it really does occupy... too much of my time and energy thinking about.
There's also at least two regarding giant lizards with venom that had to be hunted carefully.
@@origami_dream there’s always a grain of truth in mythology. The Aboriginal Australians mythology of animals aren’t myths, those animals once existed. They have been in Australia when it was Sahul & Indonesia was Sunda. They have a culture that’s over 50,000 years old, been through 2 earth processions (every 25,000 years) with climate changes, sea level rise, fall, rise again in that part of the world. There’s plenty of animals (especially mega fauna) that have gone extinct at the end of the Younger Dryas 12,000 years ago that was called myths by foreigners until bones were found.
I never heard the difference between dinosaur and lizard, anatomically speaking. The leg position and structure makes a lot of sense. Very interesting.
I'm mean difference is pretty obvious especially when dinosaurs were depicted scientifically accurate.
@Atropus Arbaalish some people think all dinosaurs had feathers, which isn't true. velociraptor & deinonychus definitely had feathers, but triceratops & t rex had scales
@@MB32904 well no you can't really say that definitively since it seems more and more likely that feathers are actually an ancestral feature for all dinosaurs so without hard evidence it's hard to say one way or another. I think Triceratops and T-Rex to a lesser extent are more likely to not be feathered or partially feathered than they are to be fully feathered but they definitely could have been we just simply don't know enough yet to say definitively one way or another like we can about dromeosaurs for example.
@@Dell-ol6hb there are skin impressions of dinosaurs that show feathers & some that show scales.
@@Dell-ol6hbstop trying
One animal that I’d love to see up close while also being an animal I’d never want to encounter up close
"how did they get this big?"
They come from a land down under,
where lizards grow and prey blunder.
Can't you here, can't you here the thunder?
It's just their feet. You better take cover!
This was one of the late-surviving Australian megafauna that made it through Australia’s desertification and actually encountered humans.
It's interesting just how many of the now extinct Australian megafauna would have almost certainly have survived long enough to encounter humans - Diprotodon, Procoptodon and Thylacoleo definitely did and it's hard not to draw conclusions that we either caused or greatly contributed to their extinction...
@@hollenwanderer Diprotodon did, as did Genyornis and some of the smaller species of Procoptodon and Stenurus. Thylacoleo may or may not have run into humans.
@@bkjeong4302 I mean where do you think the myth of the drop bear came from
There's evidence for a substantial increase in the frequency of wildfires in Australia shortly after the first humans arrived on the continent. Exactly why this happened is still hotly debated. If this creature was indeed an ambush predator then it might have had a hard time catching enough food in areas affected by fire due to a lack of cover. Even small fires can significantly reduce the amount of undergrowth in a habitat. Fires might also have destroyed its nesting areas and made it easier for predators to find its eggs even if they did survive the flames underground. Modern day komodo dragon hatchlings live in trees to avoid ground predators. This species might have done this as well. The increase in fires in Australia about 40,000 years ago destroyed vast amounts of forest. Entire generations of young lizards probably went up in smoke when the trees they lived in burned down. The survivors were forced to live on the ground where food was scarce and they were extremely vulnerable to predators. Basically an increase in both the frequency and intensity of fires could have racked havoc on this species at every stage in its life cycle.
Yep! But without more evidence I feel unsure about directly linking those two things. What is better supported is a general die of of Australian megafauna after humans showed up.
That is a very intresting take and sounds very reasonable aswell
How would a aimbush predator supposed to hunt with no cover
Besides how it would affect the offsprings
I really like that idea
imagine being the first indigenious people to come across these lizards while exploring Australia. Monsters from the Dreamtime.
I'm gonna be a child for a bit
6:33 "credit: (Richard) et al" PFFFFFTTTTTTT lol
Something to note about modern day Komodo dragons, is that they have been know to run down deers and other fast animals since they are more focus on endurance rather than speed. So megalania may have been similar (although less effective due to the larger bulk) and Komodo dragons still rely on ambush to get close before that chase to either avoid it or to get a better chance of catching the prey.
I think the reason they probably died off or evolved into the modern day Komodo is probably it’s slow speed and that it would probably be unable to swim as the amount of muscle they would need to stand up fat would not be a good thing to keep around so if they touched the water they would sink and as modern day Komodo exist on stretches of islands they probably walked over on a land bridge and then when it disappeared needed to get between islands when food became scarce so the smaller ones that could swim were able to survive the best going between islands
They likely would've been excellent swimmers like Komodo dragons and other monitor lizards. It didn't evolve directly into Komodo dragons, it's actually younger than the Komodo dragon is
@@scatman9166 neat but also like I said before fat would be a huge liability as they already move slowly and fat would just make it worse so they were probably all muscle no fat and without any fat the couldn’t swim as they would sink no matter how much effort the put in
@@RG-zt4ox They would have similar amounts of fat to their modern relatives
@@scatman9166 it’s not a good evolutionary design for large creatures to have fat because it’s extra weight that does very little especially for cold blooded creatures
@@RG-zt4ox It's extra food stores for long periods without food, which would be very useful for megalania. Even with just muscle it'd still be able to swim
Volume & Density scale exponentially so This beast was far more than twice it’s size if it’s twice the length of a Komodo Dragon.
Your quote is “even on a smaller scale this thing was twice as big as a Komodo dragon”. WRONG! Twice it’s length maybe, but length does not equal size!!!! Komodo dragons don’t way close to a 1,000 pounds and your talking about something weighing 1-4 thousand pounds in weight!
X-Large Komodo Dragon. A terrestrial mosasaur . Varanus Prisca. Giant Ripper. Large, vicious, patient, intelligent, venomous, and septic biter.
Using the process of how people want to bring back the mammoth this is something we should bring back
Why?!
Given the reputation of komodos, I would think twice if I ever wanted to bring them back let alone releasing them back into the outback
Do we really even want Megalania around in the modern day? Australia is already dangerous enough, but having a giant monitor lizard running around would be a whole other story.
Dragons were real and the earliest Australians fought them. The venomous bite is probably where the fire breathing part came from. Bet the venom felt like you were burning in fire type pain
Considering the size so do I think venom is the least concern when getting bit by Megalania. Swallowed whole would also be more of a concern.
I'd be interested to read the source for stuff about megalania speed and endurance, because that's actually a little bit surprising to me since monitors actually have adaptions that help them to overcome many of the barriers other lizards face physiologically.
Here is the paper we looked at: zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-7998.2009.00559.x
@@RaptorChatter thanks!
@@RaptorChatter The data in that paper actually shows that monitors tend to be faster the larger they are, not slower.
So the main thing is that there are diminishing returns which as they get larger there are fewer advances in speed. And with as large of an animal as Megalania those returns meant it would have needed to feed on other animals. In turn the better average movement speed could mean more rapid acquisition of scavenged meals. The speed is only relevant as much as the animal can actually catch prey.
@@RaptorChatter I also think there are few advantages with being really big as a pure scavenger. While size does help with taking down prey. A lizard that large would not be that stealthy, so would at least need to be able of short bursts of speed to catch prey. Long distance running would seem like a bad strategy for such a large frame. Living monitors also tend towards being explosive sprinters.
As of now for me it's still that badass giant komodo dragon but yeah I really love this video alot.
Hope y'all are having a great day.
We are doing pretty well, thanks!
Great video! I just kind of stumbled onto it somehow, but I really enjoyed it. The subject is fascinating and it was presented very well. I do sort of wish I had the chance to see one of these guys alive, terrifying as it probably would have been. Lol
The largest terrestrial reptile to ever exist with humans twice as big more like three to four 6 heck even 8 times as big
I wouldn't want to meet one. I had a Nile Monitor years ago. It was about 5 to 6' long and very slender. I raised it from a very young one about 1 foot long. It never tamed down. It would always come right at me. The only way I could handle it was by dropping the temperature in the cage by turning off the heat lamps. Had I tried taming it earlier, it might have been more docile.
In any case, I wouldn't want to have to meet a Megalania without a good rifle.
Yeah there's a lot better care guides now for monitors to get them trained with target feeding and what not.
@@RaptorChatter Niles are tough. Others like Savannahs are easier.
@@thomaszaccone3960 also valid. I'd recommend an ackie to any new monitor keeper. They're small enough that it won't be too terrible if anything goes wrong.
@@RaptorChatter I always wanted a green tree monitor but that is a daydream.
@Atropus Arbaalish Everyone with any experience with monitors knows they have highly individualistic behavior and different species are easier or harder to tame.
I’m Aussie… and have read a fair bit of Aboriginal Folk lore…or Dream time stories… There where other characters that kind of fit megalanias description …such as the Goanna King… I giant Goanna who had a poisonous bite…but his poison was stole from a little snake…which later made him (and his goanna clan) grow smaller….
There was another Character called the Cheeronier…Who was a giant creature that could stand up like a man (much like many monitor lizards do in threat displays hand fighting)… he was said to have long claws …and two bags/ sacks on his neck (Monitor lizards and their kin have two sacks in thier neck, which they use as ‘back up’ lungs to breath, while they run)….
You can bet these swallowed screaming, bloodied, mutilated humans whole when our existences overlapped.
No kidding we drove them to extinction so fast.
I'll bet that Megalania meat fell off the bone when cooked right.
The giant marine reptiles called Mosasaurs were also varanids and I wonder if they were venomous. If so, they would have been the largest venomous animals I can think of.
So they might have been varanids, or closely related, but there's still a lot of debate. Recently more studies have found them as closer to snakes. Either way that does put them in the group Toxicofera, which means they could be venomous, though at that size and being so highly derived in the water I don't think it's super likely except maybe in a few early ones.
@@RaptorChatter Yeah, it's unlikely. But one can wonder. That's one of the things about paleoart I find both appealing and repulsing -- when you try to figure out what an extinct animal would actually be like, you can't actually get the varied and idiosyncratic details that make an animal an animal without speculating considerably.
@@cravensean I think that's a good and bad part about things like the Prehistoric Planet documentary. It has a lot of interpretation and speculation which could be correct, but there's no way to know. But it may be taken as absolutely certain. As opposed to an idea which helps to show that these animals all had specific behaviors like modern ones.
@@RaptorChatter I like that they show how mosasaurus have basically lizards/ snake behaviors.
wow ⚡️🥰
do every animal you can.... exact format... I could listen for hours
You should be able to tell if Megalania was venomous by its teeth. They would be either hollow like a snake's or have an open slot like present day Komodo's and Hela Monsters.
The problem is the definition of "venom" is vague. Varanids have toxic compounds in their saliva, but no advanced delivery system.
But even venom is just highly changed saliva with an advanced delivery system. So at what point does it become venom.
With paleontology a lot of people support the clade Toxicofera, but hich suggests venom evolved once, and all clades within Toxicofera either have venom, or secondarily lost venom.
But it's not fully supported. Each phylogeny is just one hypothesis. And can be tested again with other methods.
So it may not be "venom" according to some researchers, but that is for more debate. As it is right now I think it's fine to call it venom.
@@RaptorChatter Totally agree, just sayin' that if any teeth were found to have delivery system traits you should have your proof. But you know that already.
Some wonderful traditional stories from Australia.
Goanna is actually just a relative Term for all of Australia’s monitor lizards not an actual individual Animal
Can't believe humans met these beasts. Amazing.
They also kinda killed them. We suck...
@@madsgrams2069 nah not really, this was towards the end of the last ice age. The mega fauna weren’t adapted to the warmer climates and changing landscapes.
Sure humans had an impact on them. But we were just trying to survive. Either hunting them for food, or killing them for self preservation. And even without us the still wouldn’t have survived.
Do mammals suck for surviving while dinosaur went extinct? Nature is brutal, not just humans
@@madsgrams2069 because we are superior 💪
@@mhdfrb9971 😂
@@mhdfrb9971 we light years superior intelligence and power wise to all animals. i suspect waring among homo lineages molded our intellect.
There is always an ark reference and I'm glad
For saying that you don’t understand evolution you sure as hell sound like you know what you’re talking about You’re obviously interested or you wouldn’t have done this much research💯
Megalania is just a mega version of lania
Varanids seem to be a very adaptable reptile design. From my understanding they were around at the time of the dinosaurs, and I do believe one family of mososaur-like marine reptiles during the Jurassic was directly descended from them.
Some of the earliest ones do come from the Cretaceous, yes. I think there's one from Mongolia for example.
Let’s be honest ancient and giant butcher is probably a better name
Where did you get the information regarding a 5 foot individual being 16 years old??
Vermiform Bones and the Evolution of Gigantism in Megalania: How a Reptilian Fox Became a Lion: Erickson et al., 2003
a real life dragon never the less
Excellent video ! Could modern Komodo dragons descend from megalania becoming increasingly smaller due to insular isolation ?
No, it's not likely. The groups probably differentiated a few million years ago, so while they are the closest relatives it's more like they're cousins or siblings, not a direct lineage.
@@RaptorChatter thanks for your reply, I think it is a common misconception about Megalania
Probably not directly, but they are indeed very closely related, in fact Komodo dragons seem to have originated in Australia itself before migrating out to the indonesian islands and then becoming extinct in their original homeland, leaving only the populations we have left today.
Komodo Dragon fossils or at least fossils of extremely similar varanids have been found in Australia. Komodo Dragons were likely contemporary with megalania.
Some species of much Australia monitor lizards even have Komodo dna from ancient hybrization events so it's possible perhaps even likely that komodos and megalania even interbred
Kudos! Very well done on a creature that I didn’t know much about before. Not a place where one would like to camp out or where the Komodo dragons live now either.
Yeah, the big monitors are neat, but I certainly would recommend taking care around them.
isn't that the cool theme music of a remarkable character with a skull for his head and blue fire for one of his eyes
About 01:00
Not a dinosaur, more like a mosasaur on land.
Quinkana has no a between the n and the k in terms of pronunciation.
If humans actually had something to do with megalanias Extinction there would be numerous artifacts jewelry and other things made from the bones and teeth of Megalania the indigenous had killed. Especially considering how much of a trophy prize a monster that big would have been. Hunts like that would have created legends!
I am not familiar with indigenous Australian archaeology, so maybe. But also the indigenous Australians may not have used animal materials in jewelry and whatnot. So it really depends on the actual history of the indigenous Australians, which has largely been erased by colonization.
Unless the role humans played in it's extinction was indirect.
Like if they caused a massive decline in megalanias prey.
5:38 - "Only" five feet long. That's long enough!
I love Megalania.🔥❤️
Megalania was a badass. His temperament and viciousness lives on in the Komodo Dragons.
We actually don't know if their temperament would be like komodo dragons, the temperaments of different species of large monitor lizards are extremely variable. For all we know megalania could have been like Asian water monitors where they're almost disconcertingly friendly for such a dangerous large animal.
@@sampagano205 Now I'm imagining some Aboriginal riding a Megalania like a horse!
@Atropus Arbaalish Yeah, and More directly for megalania bracketing its temperament tells us we don't really know anything. Because Komodo dragons are the closest relative, but the next closest relative is the lace monitor, and lace monitors are very much on the friendlier side. Going more broadly into the clade of Austronesian large monitors you have a stunning variety of temperaments that are at many points between the two extremes of komodo's and water monitors.
@Atropus Arbaalish And of course within that also monitors are generally intelligent enough that They show a lot of individual variation based on their experiences throughout their lives.
not a dinosaur, it’s the blade of Miquella
Easy question. Megalania is married the the orange Megalomaniac...
We all know this isn't the song but raise your hand if you were hearing the song
Woohoo! Yay for the Perentie shout-out!
One of the coolest varanids. Easily a top 3 lizard when considering them all.
@@RaptorChatter Hope you get to meet one (behind glass) sometime then!
@@DrBunnyMedicinal I very much prefer Asian water monitors because I do not have to meet them behind glass and can pet them on their silly little heads.
@@sampagano205 A compelling argument. ;)
I mean, unless you do something silly, like startle them, or wave your fingers far too close to their mouth, Perenties aren't all that likely to bite or climb up you.
But just on the off chance, I prefer to have a sturdy barrier between myself and them, or at the very least not be nearly the tallest thing in proximity. ;)
She pronounced Quinkana wrong.
They were big alight.
Forget the venom, if that thing tears into your thigh you are mince meat anyways.
For a person sure, for larger animals maybe it needed it if it had it. But with as partial as the fossils are it's hard to tell.
I wonder if Baron will have a poisonous bite!
Megalania is a song from undertale 💪
It’s megalavania
I thought komodo dragon’s venom were deadly bacteria? Or is it a mix?
It really comes down to the definition of venom. Even snake venom is basically specialized saliva, and the monitors do have some toxic compounds in their saliva, separate from bacteria. So for this video saying that it is a venom is reasonable, but ay be defined differently in the future.
megalania?… U U U U U🦴🦴🦴🦴🦴
@1:25 background cat
The idea that Komodo dragons employ a bite and wait predatory strategy or that bacteria or toxic compounds play a large role in this has been largely disproven and has been for a long time and was largely caused by observations of Komodo Dragons hunting and harassing water buffalo that often wallow in filthy water sources and it is those water sources that cause the infections in the buffalos wounds. In most cases Komodo dragons hunt smaller prey like deer, goats and wild boar and kill or immobilize their prey rather quickly via mechanical damage and massive blood loss that causes shock. There is some evidence that points to the venom acting as an anticoagulant and helping to induce shock, the real question is how vital or even effective these compounds are in aiding the Komodo dragon's hunting strategy, I personally am of the opinion that these compounds are supplementary but not at all vital to the lizards hunting success.
Regardless the kind of damage megalania could of done with even a single bite is something probably more akin to modern large predatory sharks than to anything living on land today.
Have you actually seen this in person? I saw komodos in the wild. One bite and 4 hours later dead buffalo.
It is very much still a matter of debate whether or not komodo dragon venom is a deeply important part of their hunting strategy or just a secondary thing within the herpetological community.
Considering how one prominent proposed way it is used to help in hunting is by allowing the komodo to pursue the same individual over long distances in spite of their lacking endurance skills, I think there's a good case that it would be more useful in priscus than it is in komodensis given how much slower they would be than their smaller relatives.
@@sampagano205 I'm aware, I never died it, what isn't a matter of debate is a hunting strategy that revolves around biting the prey and then retreating while toxic compounds do all the work, most prey komodos hunt is dispatched relatively quickly.
Until there is more research I am sticking with what is known, or at least well supported. The saliva itself also has toxic components separate from the bacteria. So it really comes down to how you define venomous, but for this purpose it is close enough to say it is, at least until researchers resolve the issue more.
It's not true that It's only scavenger.
Try to obtain artifact of the hunter and see how they jump on you as real predator my friend.
But if you tame it, you can use to the same advantage! To walk on the ceiling! Ha!
Yay! Dani!
❤️❤️❤️❤️ Dani ❤️❤️❤️❤️.
So, if I can sprint at 6 MPH I would have been safe.
You sound like you have spent a lot of time with Zeke. :-)
Except you talk slower
Slow yes, but I think it would have taken more than afew humans with it if we tried to hunt it. Especially given stone age weaponry.
The thing is though that you can hit it with a spear from further away. You don't need to be right next to it, so while I'm sure it probably ate or killed people at some point it was almost definitely a more one sided interaction.
I wonder how good if swimmer it was, many modern day monitor good swimmers including Komodo
This could have made it more agile sometime
Imagine a megalania fighting a saltwater crocodile in the water.
Mosasaurus were basically giant marine monitor lizards.
Maybe. Unfortunately we don't really have enough of it to say what kind of monitor its body plan would have been closer to. It may have been more like a Komodo or a water monitor. Which while similar would mean different things for how it may have behaved.
I have no idea if work has been done on it, but my assumption would depend on whether it's tail and build was more like a lace monitor or a komodo dragon.
Because while komodo dragons can swim, they are also extremely unlikely to swim in reality and seem to actively avoid it even in cases where it might benefit them.
Meanwhile lace monitors are more like standard monitors who actively prefer to live near bodies of water that they can swim in.
Isn't 'Megalania' the name of Trump's wife?
Please the name for Australian lizards is pronounced "go-anna".
She was Donald Trump's wife. Megalania Trump
Lost me on on more deaths creates more fossils. 100% of all Megalania died. Did I mishear?
Yeah, I was lost on that part too. I'd assume less fossil means a lower total population.
Sans 😳
Hehe sans Undertale
It was & always will be just another cartoon 👍
If you think every prehistoric lizard is a dinosaur, how in the world are you qualified to host a show for paleo geeks?
I'm just the guest host when my husband, the actual paleontologist, is busy or out in the field and we still need to get a video recorded. So this is only like my 3rd time doing one. I do have him still check the script to make sure all of the science and research is correct
Dimetrodon isn't even real reptile, it was synapsid close relative to ancestors of mammals.
Given how that was clearly a joke, I don't really see the problem.
Megalania is unfortunately one of many prehistoric animals subject to rumours of it still being alive.
I'm fine without knowing how strong it's bite was or it's dining habits.
The Komodo is Megalania, it's size difference is a product of island dwarfism!
As a teenager, I had a crush on a girl whose father claimed to have seen a giant Komodo in the Northern Territory of Australia. He was rather an intimidating Captain in the Merchant Navy, a dour Scot, I wouldn't say the type to be inclined to fabrication. It was in a clearing in dense forest. Initially he thought it a massive crocodile eating the carcass of a buffalo or cow, but estimated he was a least half a mile from a river. He was familiar with Komodos having sailed the islands for about 12 years, but estimated this to be at least twice the size of the ones he'd seen there. His part aboriginal guide, gave it a name and explained he'd heard of them but never seen one before. He also said that it had an evil spirit and to give it a wide berth.
The Komodo is NOT the same taxon, they are distinct species from distinct lineages.
@@Dr.Ian-Plect
Ian I'm sure you are absolutely correct. I was merely retelling a story, one that fascinated me. At the time I'd not heard of Komodo dragons, or even the place. It was at least another 40 years before I heard of Megalania! But in the interests of the story I'll explain a bit more. I, a love struck chap of about 22 was going on a date with a truly stunning girl. The date was a village Christmas concert/carol service and pantomime all rolled into one. In those days one was expected to spend about half an hour chatting to your dates parents. The other custom, as mad as it sounds today, was to have a drink with them, typically sherry or scotch! Anyway I made some stupid comment about how a virgin birth was preposterous, to which my dates father explained that there was one animal that could have a virgin birth and hence the subject of the Komodo arose. He then went to tell of his encounter in the Northwest territories with a giant Komodo. He wasn't a fanciful chap, dour matter of fact, slightly grumpy, dead straight Scottish sea captain. I'm certain he wasn't swinging the lead (lying). To be frank he probably wouldn't have had the imagination. What he was describing was an Australian Komodo, he believed they were all over the Indonesian islands but the king Komodo, the biggest of all, was the 20 footer he'd seen on his bush trip whilst he was waiting for cargo.
It was me who interjected Megalania as a theory. Be blummin' amazing if it was!
As a footnote recently, in the last 6 months or so, one of my best friends told me he'd taken my very beautiful dates virginity. For about 10 minutes I had the full pang of jealousy!
Kindest regards P
@@phillipchadwick8269 The virgin birth part is a well known reproductive strategy called parthenogenesis. I appreciate the context, were you not a bit more than jealous about your ex?
Sadly she wasn't my ex. Never got there. Unrequited love that one. Don't feel sorry for me though. I became one hell of a player. But she really really was a show stopper. Hey ho! Best etc P
@@phillipchadwick8269 ok!
As soon as she was about to say she considers any big reptile in prehistory dinosaur I was like f*** this I'm not listening to this dislike
Well, that's rude. Especially since it is explained further that that's not how it works.
It was a giant monitor lizard. End of story.
They are not extinct I have photographed them.
Can I see the pictures?
Why swear tho?
Because she's an adult?
@@Popebug an adult have limited vocabulary?
2nd
minute
Didn't know that there are WOKE paleontologist. Lol
Yeah pretty cringe ngl
@@mhdfrb9971 yeah indeed. but no, i was pretty drunk and angry when i wrote that. so no i love allmost all people
Being 'woke' is pretty cool
WTF are you talking about?
@@thecondescendinggoomba5552 Um no, it's cringe.
ISN'T SHE MARRIED TO DONALD TRUMP ?