Varinus varus: Lace Monitor Lizard injures Queensland couple as they try to rescue Dog.

An elderly couple from Queensland are receiving hospital treatment after being attacked by a Lace Monitor Lizard, Varinus varus, while trying to save their Dog. The incident happened in a park at Shute Harbour, near Proserpine, at about 3.30 on Thursday 15 August 2019, when the Lizard, known locally as a Goanna, attacked the Long-haired Jack Russel Terrier, named Lily. The Dog owner, Reg Eggers, 72, tried to drive the Lizard off he was in turn attacked, receiving bites to the arms and leg, which caused him to lose a great deal of blood. When his wife tried to intervene she was also bitten. The couple were airlifted to a hospital for treatment, both they and the Dog survived.

A Lace Monitor, Varinus varus, near Mission Beach in Queensland in 2011. Donald Hobern/Flikr/Wikimedia Commons.

Lace Monitors are large Varanid Lizards, reaching about 2.5 m in length, which will take a wide variety of prey, including other Lizards, Birds and Mammals. Cats and small Dogs fall comfortably within the size range of their typical prey, and are often attacked; Humans are typically outside their size range and are generally left alone, but the Lizards can respond very aggressively if provoked, and have powerful bites and extremely sharp teeth.

Reg Eggers, 72, of Shute Harbour, Queensland, attacked by a Lace Monitor. Facebook/7News.

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A giant Monitor Lizard from the Miocene of Samos, Greece.

Monitor Lizards, Varanidae, are carnivorous Lizards noted for their large size and aggressive behavior. While the majority of the group are not exceptionally large, the largest members are bigger than any other Lizards. The extant Komodo Dragon reaches 3 m in length, and the extinct Giant Australian Monitor is thought to have reached lengths of around 7 m. Among the Squamates (the group that includes Snakes and Lizards) only the Boas, Pythons and extinct Mosasaurs (a group of fully marine Reptiles that went extinct at the end of the Cretaceous) are larger, and among Lizards the only species that reach comparable sizes are the limbless Amphisbaena and Glass Snakes. More remarkably still, the Monitor Lizards appear to have repeatedly evolved large forms in places where they were in direct competition with carnivorous Mammals; the Boas and Pythons, in contrast, evolved large sizes before the evolution of large Mammals, and have simply remained large.

In a paper published in the journal PLoS One on 10 August 2012, Jack Conrad of the Anatomy Department at the New York College of Osteopathic Medicine, and the Department of Vertebrate Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History and Ana Balcarcel and Carl Mehling, also of the Department of Vertebrate Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History, describe a new species of Monitor Lizard from the Miocene of Samos, Greece.

The new specimen was collected by the famous palaeontologist Barnum Brown (discoverer of Tyrannosaurus rex, amongst other things) in the 1920s, and have lain undescribed in the collection of the American Museum of Natural History ever since. It was found in the Turolian (Late Miocene) Mytilini Formation of northern Samos, making it 6.9–7.6 million years old.

Map of Greece with Samos enlarged. Circle indicates the locality where the Monitor fossil was found. The star indicates Athens. Conrad et al. (2012).

The new species is placed in the extant Monitor Lizard genus Varanus, and given the specific name amnhophilis, meaning 'lover of lamb', in reference to the tendency of large monitors to take Mammalian prey. The remains from which it is reconstructed are extremely fragmentary, but it is thought that it would have been about 70 cm in length, making it the earliest known large member of the genus Varanus.

Reconstructions of Varanus amnhophilis, based upon the available material. (Top) Complete animal. (Bottom) Head. Conrad et al. (2012).

See also The Kandyan House Gecko; not extinct after all, Velvet Geckos and Broad-headed Snakes; understanding the population structure of a favored prey item in order to help protect an endangered predator, News species of Girdled Lizard from the Democratic Republic of Congo, A new species of Semiaquatic Spectacled Lizard from southern Peru and Reptiles on Sciency Thoughts YouTube.

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