Australia’s ancient super lizard Megalania was venomous - Digital Journal: Your News Network

Description

Megalania was the biggest of the monitors. In Australia, the goanna is one of its little relatives, and it's usually the size of a border collie, when full grown, although a known living relative of Megalania, the Perente, is somewhat bigger. The Komodo Dragon is a sort of quarter size version. If you check out these images , you get the impression of a monster lizard, but this thing was the size of a horse. The skull of an adult alone was the size of a human, according to some texts.

Science Daily explains the situation, and what this discovery of a venomous bite means:

All reptiles have some very dangerous bacteria in their mouths. That’s been considered, as you can see, to be their secret weapon. There’s another side, however, to the dragons. Their teeth are like steak knives, and they can do a lot of damage with their bite. Australia’s goannas are relatively harmless, mild tempered, and don’t attack things bigger than themselves. The Komodo Dragons, however, are fierce, and they can even kill tough animals like wild pigs, and people.

The Komodo Dragon is the nearest thing to Megalania, a direct descendant. They’re top predators. They use an anticoagulant to cause massive bleeding by their prey, which is really overkill. They’re powerful animals, and the bite would take out most animals from loss of blood anyway.

However, it’s also good strategy. The “bite and flight” approach is also believed to have been used by animals like Tyrannosaurus Rex; one huge bite, and the animal is already dead. If it tries to run, it bleeds to death. If it tries to fight, it gets progressively weaker for the same reason, expending energy as well. There’s another twist with Megalania, though: The bite induces paralysis as well. An ...

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http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/273022

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/273022