Anyone know about those giant lizard things in Australia?

[begin_within]

I was watching a special by Huell Howser (who does the shows "California's Gold" and "Road Trip with Huell Howser") last night. It was a trip he went on by himself to Australia, and filmed it holding his video camera the whole time. At one point he was on his way to Uluru (Ayers Rock) and he was in the middle of the Outback by himself, and stopped to see one of the strangest animals I have ever seen. It ran across the road, and he videotaped it by the road. It looked kind of like a slender lizard or even an alligator, and it seemed to be about 5 feet long from what I could tell. It was really slender and maneuvered around quickly and effortlessly. It had a long tongue that it kept sticking out over and over again. I'm sure if I had been on a hike and encountered one of these, I would have probably fainted on the spot. It really looked like something you would see in an animated movie, but there it was, scampering around the Australian desert. Anyone here know about these things?

[GoddessOfGuinness]

1. Maybe a frilled lizard?

[begin_within]

2. No, it was much bigger than a frilled lizard and didn't have the frills.

Maybe it was a no-frills lizard. It was approximately the size of that creature in your signature photo, but much thinner, lower to the ground, and basically black or very dark green. After looking around at pictures I think it may be a type of monitor, but it was larger than any of the pictures I have seen so far. Truly a frightening critter due to its speed and that constantly flickering tongue.

[pokerfan]

3. Monitor Lizard?

Monitor is actually a family of many different species so the one who saw may look somewhat different.

[begin_within]

4. It was very similar to that, but I don't recall any white spots on the one he encountered.

Also the one he encountered was not nearly as well-fed-looking, it was lithe and slender. And I think the mouth was a little less rounded and more pointed. But the picture you posted is reminiscent and must be a closely related species.

[begin_within]

5. Here it is!!!!

Goanna, or Sand Monitor. The one on Huell Howser's show had little or no white spots, so maybe it was just dirty. But it looked like this picture. And it was able to lay low like this, or stand up so that its body was off the ground. It was able to jump gracefully up onto a rock and then back down again.

http://home.iprimus.com.au/readman/goanna.htm

[freethought]

6. A perentie perhaps?

Here's a link describing a perentie lizard. Description sounds about right, about 5 ft. long.
There is actually a number of monitor-type lizards in Australia. This is just one that came to mind with reading your description.

http://www.kingsnake.com/oz/lizards/monitors/vgigant.htm

[TheBaldyMan]

7. do you mean a goanna? It's a type of monitor lizard. n/t

[begin_within]

8. Yes, I found out it was a goanna.

[begin_within]

9. So would it be pronounced "Joanna Goanna" or "Tawana Goanna?"

[TheBaldyMan]

10. ??? with my accent Tawana rhymes with Joanna

so I guess the answer is yes.

[BreweryYardRat]

11. Be grateful the goanna's big cousin is almost certainly long extinct.

Megalania priscea:



Scale your goanna up by a factor of 4, and you've got it.

Mind you, there has been the occasional claim of someone seeing a live one way out in the outback, but they're probably mistaken.

[begin_within]

12. How did they know how to make the skeleton model? Did they find a skelton of it?

That's basically a dinosaur if you ask me.

[BreweryYardRat]

13. Yep. Skeletons.

Last fossil found dated to just 30,000 years ago.