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Australia has over 860 species, a large number in comparison to other continents; for example, North America's total is about 280. [1] The most species-rich group is Squamata, the snakes and lizards. They are especially diverse in the arid areas of Australia, where other fauna are scarcer.
Perenties are the largest living species of lizard in Australia. Perenties can grow to lengths of 2.5 m (8 ft 2 in) and weigh up to 20 kg (44 lb), possibly up to 3 m (9 ft 10 in) and 40 kg (88 lb), making it the fourth-largest extant species of lizard (exceeded in size only by the Komodo dragon, Asian water monitor and crocodile monitor).
The largest legless lizard this family is the common scaly-foot (Pygopus lepidopodus) with a length of 70 cm (28 in), [129] a SVL of 24 cm (9.4 in) [130] with a weight of 225.95 g (7.970 oz) [131] and also the largest legless lizard in Australia [129] and biggest in the world overall, if don't counts some members the family Anguidae.
For a list of all monitor lizards of the genus, see Complete list of genus Varanus. The following are found in Australia. For the most part, in common names, "goanna" and "monitor" are interchangeable. Perentie – V. giganteus; Lace monitor – V. varius; Sand goanna – V. gouldii (also Gould's goanna or ground goanna) Mertens' water monitor ...
In Australia, it coexisted with the even larger monitor species Varanus priscus also known as megalania, the largest terrestrial lizard ever. [22] The oldest records of the Komodo dragon on Flores date to around 1.4 million years ago, during the Early Pleistocene. [23]
A ginormous and deadly funnel-web spider has been handed in to a reptile park in Australia, where staff said it was the largest of its kind they’d ever seen. Fittingly named Hemsworth, the ...
It is the largest group of Australian lizards and it has an extensive radiation in the arid zones. [2] Many of the species of Ctenophorus have been grouped by a similar morphology . The informal names and groupings within this genus — rock dragon, sand dragon, crevice-dragon, ground dragon, and bicycle-dragon — are named after the ...
Megalania (Varanus priscus) is an extinct species of giant monitor lizard, [1] part of the megafaunal assemblage that inhabited Australia during the Pleistocene.It is the largest terrestrial lizard known to have existed, but the fragmentary nature of known remains make estimates highly uncertain.