Since the extinction of the Tyrannosaurus rex on Earth, it is the largest reptile on Earth, a cold-blooded hunter weighing 250 kilograms, which is the ancient monitor lizard. It is also the largest known lizard
"Australian Magic Dragon" ~ Ancient monitor lizard
The ancient monitor lizard is one of the most powerful predators ever created, and for more than 1 million years, this giant beast ruled a continent, and in a world of hot-blooded mammals, this fearsome reptile dominated all directions.
The ancient monitor lizard was not replaced by any living animal at the time, and it is rumored that he still crawls the earth today, the most terrifying creature in the Australian outback, the ancient monitor lizard.
Australia is an isolated continent surrounded by seas that for millions of years provided a unique environment for evolutionary experimentation, where the largest predator is the dingo, not much bigger than the average dog.
Australian dingo
But Australia was a very different place during the Pleistocene, about 1.5 million years ago, when the continent was home to megamammals, also known as megafauna.
Giant kangaroos, 2.1 meters tall and weighing more than 227 kilograms, giant turn-faced kangaroos, and wombats weighing more than 2,700 kilograms, and feeding on these huge creatures is a huge carnivorous lizard that you would never want to meet with.
Ancient monitor lizard, which can be compared to Tyrannosaurus rex and great white sharks, in the face of this extinct behemoth, its modern relatives, such as the Komodo dragon, can be described as pale, the latter is the largest lizard in existence, the ancient monitor lizard is a very large lizard, this animal is muscular, muscular, and a very strong animal.
If you look at its evil bone structure, its jaws can lock onto almost any kind of prey, so if it bites something, it will definitely not let him escape, ancient monitor lizards are definitely natural killing machines, they have incredibly hard scales that cover their bodies, in fact there are large bones in these scales, this situation is especially reflected in Komodo dragon lizards, so ancient monitor lizards may be the same.
Scientists estimate that ancient monitor lizards can grow up to nearly six meters long and weigh more than 250 kilograms, apparently this giant ripper is indeed a giant beast, Australia after the end of the dinosaur era, it is the only continent that allows reptiles to dominate, other continents are basically dominated by mammals.
This may be because Australia at that time was not only isolated, but also very hot, why reptiles were prominent here, and everywhere else were mammals dominating, the rise of mammals was born of a global hopeless natural disaster, that is, 65 million years ago, a huge asteroid crashed into the earth, strangling giant reptiles, which we know as dinosaurs, with the extinction of dinosaurs, mammals evolved into dominant species, and eventually they will rule the earth.
There is only one exception, Australia, where evolutionary processes have carved out a different path, Australia is often seen as a natural laboratory because, despite its vastness, it is isolated from the world, like a large island, so if there is an opportunity to carry out some kind of purification experiment, it tends to happen here.
One hundred and fifty years ago, people found only one bone and one back bone of ancient monitor lizards, and over the past one hundred and fifty years, museums across Australia have found more and more fragments of that skeleton, except for one missing, the skull; Skull fragments have only entered the museum in the last two decades.
After that, for the first time ever, the head of an ancient monitor lizard was recreated; When you pick up all those little pieces of the skull and put them together, you get a very basic idea of it, very hard, hard bones with crocodile-like teeth, so you can imagine that this is a powerful animal; It has a very strong head, and it will use it to hunt its prey.
The last crawling ruler of prehistory
What makes the ancient monitor lizard such a deadly predator, and where does its nickname giant ripper come from? The hard skull of the ancient monitor lizard is perfect for this animal to attack, and he is the first since the extinction of the Tyrannosaurus rex.
The key to their killing methods is to tear and bite off large pieces of flesh and let them bleed to death, and the teeth of any predator are key to understanding how they kill, some animals, such as the teeth of saber-toothed tigers, are specially used to pierce and cut; Tyrannosaurus rex teeth were used to crush carapaces and bones; The teeth of ancient monitor lizards can both bite and tear.
Each tooth of the ancient monitor lizard is equipped with a row of uniform serrations, like a knife for cutting steaks, the most important point of these serrations is that they are located on the back of the teeth; In this way, when the ancient monitor lizard pulls its prey back, these teeth can cut off the muscles; You can imagine how big a hole that would bite into the side of the prey.
Paleomonitor lizards have a special adaptive function. Making its bite more lethal than its modern relatives, the modern monitor lizard's skull has a ruler line that extends to the front, which is common in all modern monitor lizards, which is what makes ancient monitor lizards unique; Because you look at its upper jaw, its tooth line is facing up, all the way to the front of the muzzle.
This allows the ancient monitor lizard to bite its prey downwards, to grip it tightly, which means it can pierce its prey and tear off huge pieces of flesh, more than any existing monitor lizard can bite.
Huge bite force, huge bite diameter, will cause a lot of blood loss, individually, each of its adaptive functions is a lethal weapon, and when they are combined, the ancient monitor lizard is turned into a killing machine.
But his competitors are also not vegetarian, what gives the ancient monitor lizard the upper hand over those of the more intelligent warm-blooded mammals; The small number of ancient monitor lizard fossils that have been found have not given scientists much clue, so we can only refer to his modern relatives.
Although there is no monitor lizard as large as the ancient monitor lizard today, many of the characteristics of monitor lizards may be the same as their giant elements, modern monitor lizards, their senses are extremely sensitive, their hearing is good, but their sense of smell is better, they can smell blood and carrion a kilometer away, and their visual acuity is also very good.
Many mammals have keen hearing. They change the direction of their senses so that they can detect predators and run away in the opposite direction, which is easier to survive, so obviously the slow ones will be eaten first, and if hearing is the key to the survival of predators, how can a giant beast like the ancient monitor lizard approach its prey and catch him off guard?
When you hear a lizard walking through the jungle, it makes a lot of noise, and the ancient monitor lizard makes ten times more noise than other lizards, the ancient monitor lizard is born unable to quietly track its prey, it must find another way, but how can a six-meter-long lizard find its prey without revealing its whereabouts?
Most lizards have excellent eyesight, but they rely primarily on their sense of smell to find prey, and they have a long snake-like tongue, which indicates that it is closely related to snakes.
They smell the air with their tongues, like snakes, which is a detection device that they are extremely sensitive to, and the smell of predators is composed of microparticles, which rise from the animal's body and float in the air, some of the micro forces fall on the lizard's tongue, and when the lizard retracts its tongue, it analyzes where those micro forces come from.
Since the tongue is bifurcated, that side is closer to the back is the animal, and more of the smell power will fall on that side, which can help the lizard lock its target, when they stick out the tongue, the senses of the tongue are three-dimensional, so that the tip of the tongue can detect the left and right sides, helping them determine the direction and distance.
But finding the location of its prey is just the beginning, how can a giant lizard get close enough to kill its prey? The answer is ambush; It's one of the most efficient ways to hunt, and it's much lower than chasing food, and all the predators are trading, and the calories they get and the calories they pay all depend on how much energy you consume, whether you get a return from the food you catch.
But the ancient monitor lizard must avoid the sight of its prey, hide in bushes or grass, and it usually can't see its prey, so how does he know when to attack? The answer: an organic radar system with an extraordinary set of super sensory mechanisms that allow him to imagine his world without actually seeing, much like a crocodile's sensory system.
That is the crocodile in the dark water can also feel the movement of the fish, like the crocodile, the ancient monitor lizard also has a built-in motion detection system on the jaws, he squats there, his head is attached to the ground, it uses these cheek fossas that grow along the upper and lower jaws, sensing the vibration of the prey coming over, each socket is a nerve ending, it can judge whether there is a large enough prey worth attacking nearly 15 meters away.
The paleomonitor lizard will ambush near the puddle, which is where the prey is most likely to pass, and then he only needs to patiently wait for the vibration of the prey, but even with all these sensory advantages, catching hot-blooded mammals is still a challenge for cold-blooded reptiles.
And this lizard needs a lot of food, such as the Komodo dragon, which eats food equivalent to 80% of his body weight for a meal; Ancient monitor lizards may consume twice as much food as it; But what prey can feed a 250-kilogram super lizard? A kangaroo 2.1 meters tall and weighing 227 kilograms, anything can happen when these two animals encounter.
Do ancient monitor lizards have opponents?
Scientists believe that ancient monitor lizards became extinct thousands of years ago, but there are persistent rumors that there are still small numbers of these giant monitor lizards, lurking in remote areas of the Australian outback.
Of course, there is no evidence that this six-meter-long lizard is still alive today, we are really lucky, if there are still ancient monitor lizards, there will be many deaths in the wild, livestock will also be in danger, the largest lizard in existence, the Komodo dragon, will eat goats, they are much smaller than ancient monitor lizards.
Something the size of an ancient monitor lizard that can eat a cow, and during the Ice Age, this reptile once dominated the land of giant mammals, so what did it prey?
On this isolated continent, marsupials have become the dominant mammals, many of which are huge, far larger than the marsupials we know today, the largest of which is the diplodont, a 2,700-kilogram herbivore, like a monster bear, its size like a rhinoceros, and its large size is its best defense.
As today, Australia was full of kangaroos, the only difference being that giant short-faced kangaroos, weighing 227 kilograms, stood up more than 2.1 meters, just like Australian giraffes, they could catch leaves nearly three meters above the ground, beyond the capabilities of other animals.
But it's not an easy target to hunt, and the giant kangaroo is not a four-legged ball of meat, and it is a fearsome target for any carnivore, these giant kangaroos were the masters of Australian sports fighting during the ice age.
Just like their modern counterparts, these extinct giant creatures will defend themselves with powerful hind legs, and they can attack with the claws of their feet; But the ancient monitor lizard is too strong, and it is impossible to defeat him with a kick; But the giant kangaroo only needs to knock the lizard unconscious to give himself time to escape, but the giant kangaroo accelerates very slowly, making it vulnerable to attack before lifting the speed.
I personally think that the ancient monitor lizard will definitely win, although the ancient monitor lizard is large and bulky, but perhaps he is not as slow as it seems, modern monitor lizards have adapted and evolved the ability to chase prey, they have a special technique that allows them to let the body breathe more oxygen during the run;
They stretch their throats to get more air in, and then they contract it to get air into their lungs, and this natural supercharger pumps more oxygen into the monitor lizard's system, allowing it to run long distances at high speed, which means they can chase their prey whenever they see it.
The ancient monitor lizard may also have this ability to accelerate quickly and chase for a long time, it only needs to be close to the prey, it is enough to bite the tail of the prey, the tail is indispensable to the action of the kangaroo, in case the tail is bitten by the ancient monitor lizard, then his trouble is great.
He will try to jump away and bleed to death, the ancient monitor lizard can still have a full meal, even if the strength is infinite, the giant kangaroo is still not the opponent of the ancient monitor lizard, and the only animal that can challenge the ancient monitor lizard is another ancient monitor lizard.
Scientists believe that males will fight each other for mating and may also fight for territory, and the Komodo dragon in Indonesia is the largest of the many surviving ancient monitor lizards, in fact it is three meters long and weighs 136 kilograms, making it the largest lizard on Earth.
Often in a fight for mating rights, in a strange ritual, the losing party makes the victor scratch his skin to show that he admits defeat, and ancient monitor lizards may also have this trait, in which they may cause some damage, such as breaking ribs or breaking each other's skull.
While giant lizards may fight each other, they remain Australia's undisputed hegemon.
Are ancient monitor lizards still on Earth?
Do you want to say that ancient monitor lizards still exist? I think not, but now we can bring this giant beast back to life and recreate its world, less than 70,000 years ago it was Australia's apex carnivore, compared to today, when it was a very different land, full of huge pests, all on the plate of this voracious reptile.
But the ancient monitor lizard could not claim these delicacies to themselves, and there were other predators on the continent, the most famous of which was a strange animal called Terra Cleotani Fix; That is, the wombatical, although its name is called a wombat, it is not a lion, and it does not even belong to the cat family.
In fact, this beast is a distant relative of modern kangaroos and koalas; Imagine an animal half the size of a tiger and aggressive like a possum driven into a corner, the wombaton is Australia's largest mammalian carnivore, it has sharp claws, powerful soles of its feet and blade-like sharp teeth, but its physique is not very large, only about 1.2 meters long and weighs less than 136 kilograms.
But it was a nimble and cunning animal, a ninja-killer of his time, with sharp claws that made it an outstanding expert in tree climbing, which attacked from the air and surprised its prey, which made up for its lack of size .
This tactic earned him an alias, Airborne Cat. The commingial-lion is definitely a natural sneak attack master, he can quietly approach those huge dangerous animals, fight those animals, and drop these animals to the ground, this beast has a very strong bite force.
We can imagine that putting it together with the ancient monitor lizard, it is the only animal that can challenge the ancient monitor lizard, these inferior animals, usually avoid fighting, but when they track the same prey, it is inevitable to fight each other.
The Pleistocene, itself a difficult period, was governed by what we call the glacial and interglacial cycles, with the last glacial cycle reaching its peak of drought in the last ice age, with more superdroughts than ever before.
As Australia becomes drier and food becomes rarer, this mammal monster and giant reptile may compete for prey.
We can imagine a scene where when the ancient monitor lizard enters the territory of the homina lion, the camellion looks down, sees the monitor lizard, senses that it is a threat, and then he jumps towards the lizard to attack him, and once the triombaton pounces on the lizard, it is likely to attack its neck, and he will certainly not let his eyes off the head of the ancient monitor lizard, which will be a mortal fight between two ice age duelists.
Although the ancient monitor lizard was bitten by the vital throat part by the homyospat, he has other ways to defend, the ancient monitor lizard also has a weapon, a flapping tail, so the homopera must be very careful, because if it is hit by that tail, it will be hit hard, if I want to bet, I will probably put the bet on the ancient monitor lizard;
Although the elephant lion is strong and powerful, it is also an efficient predator, but its size and flexibility are indeed at a disadvantage compared with ancient giant base; The ancient monitor lizard, with its large size, will eventually win.
Australia today. Most petite animals are famous for their cute and peculiar, but less than 70,000 years ago, it was a world of giant beasts, and ancient monitor lizards were the top predators, this six-meter-long lizard, also known as giant rippers, but the largest beast in the jungle is the diplodont.
A rhinoceros-sized herbivorous mammal, it can be said to be the largest marsupial ever made, definitely a giant beast, an animal like this has no natural enemies, it may not be a very friendly animal, it is hot-tempered, huge body, I think all animals will retreat when they see it, 2,700 kilograms of two-pronged beasts, can ancient monitor lizards defeat this moving mountain of meat?
Ancient monitor lizards will find that adult diplodonts are actually difficult to deal with, and the huge body of the dichodont is itself a very effective defense against predators including ancient monitor lizards.
The secret weapon of the ancient monitor lizard
But there is growing evidence that ancient monitor lizards have a secret weapon that can deal with almost any animal, including these giant marsupials, and the same extant monitor lizards provide evidence of their assistance.
The Komodo dragon often kills animals much larger than itself, and it once killed buffaloes ten times heavier than him, and it has long been believed that the Komodo dragon can secrete a deadly saliva full of infectious bacteria, a theory that has been widely accepted for many years.
But some scientists believe that it is a rumor, this theory is completely in the air, there is no evidence of this, there is nothing unique in the saliva, there are no super toxic bacteria.
Scientists think that there may be another explanation for the fatal bite of the Komodo dragon, and when we started studying these animals, the first thing we noticed was that there was a large area protruding along the sides of its jaw, but if you look at reptile anatomy books, they don't mention it at all.
Although this is a huge protrusion, it is not an insignificant structure, which immediately caused scientists to think, because the American lizard or Mexican lizard is poisonous, they are considered the only lizard in the world, but they are also a species very close to the monitor lizard, so it is not difficult to imagine that this protrusion is the same poison as the American lizard, so they may also produce the same venom.
Scientists used magnetic resonance imaging to scan the head of the Komodo dragon, and with the help of magnetic resonance imaging, we can let such a head specimen into computer data.
It was later found that the Komodo dragon was not the only monitor lizard with this toxicity, when the Komodo dragon bit the prey, the pressure forced the venom, and mixed with the saliva there, and then the toxic mixture slowly penetrated into the wound, if the current monitor lizard poison glands, then the ancient monitor lizard is likely to have the ability to secrete toxins.
The ancient monitor lizard is basically a larger version of the tree monitor lizard, and the tree monitor lizard should be closest to it, and the closest species to the tree monitor lizard is the Komodo dragon.
Scientists have concluded that the paleo monitor lizard is the largest venomous animal ever made, and if scientists are right, this poisonous gland may be its secret weapon, giving the paleo giant the ability to defeat huge prey and even compete with other predators.
Human activities threaten the ancient monitor lizard
No matter how he killed his prey, for hundreds of thousands of years, the ancient monitor lizard was the undisputed overlord of his world, but about fifty thousand years ago, a new predator came to this place, and that was humans.
Humans set foot in Australia for the first time, but those early Australians may not be the only predators that hunt abundant prey, hundreds of thousands of years, giant ripper ancient monitor lizards dominated the land, have humans ever met this giant beast?
Most scientists believe that about 50,000 years ago, humans from Asia or Africa migrated to Australia, and whether ancient monitor lizards were still alive during this period, to answer this question, we must determine the age of the youngest ancient monitor lizards.
So far, there has been no way to do this with certainty, and the well-known carbon-14 dating method, which can only be used to measure fossils that are at most 40,000 years old, much later than the first humans to arrive in Australia.
The scientists eventually used a thermionic mass spectrometry machine, but preliminary results suggest that it is very likely that the ancient monitor lizard was alive 50,000 years ago, when humans arrived on the Australian continent.
Not only is there direct fossil evidence, but also in terms of definitive prospects, which suggests that there was indeed some time overlap between the last megafauna, especially animals such as paleomonitor lizards, and some of the earliest colonists who entered Australia, which, if true, would rewrite the history of prehistoric Australia.
What if humans and ancient monitor lizards really lived in Australia at the same time, and they were likely to encounter each other? How the first primitive weapons of the Australians worked against the nearly six-meter-long poisonous lizard.
The spear hardened by fire is a primitive weapon used by Pleistocene humans, and it is in fact very strong and must be difficult to break, but even with all this, this weapon will not help much when fighting ancient monitor lizards.
The ancient monitor lizard has been Australia's number one predator for at least half a million years, but the giant lizard, which once ruled a continent, has finally gone extinct.
It disappeared, leaving only a few fossilized skeletons, indicating its existence. How could such a powerful predator disappear without a trace?
A lot of people think it's a timely extinction process, an overnight event, but extinction is a very complex process, usually over thousands of years, and we don't know why the ancient monitor lizard went extinct, whether it was because of climate change, it could be due to human hunting, maybe both.
In fact, all of Australia's megafauna is extinct, and paleo monitor lizards are among them, although from time to time there are rumors that paleo monitor lizards still lurk in the Australian Outback; But paleontologists have no doubt that this giant lizard is gone.
It seems that the long-standing reptile-mammal dispute seems to have subsided, but today the ancient monitor lizard still has many close relatives, the terrible Komodo dragon can reach a length of three meters, it is said to hunt humans, it has existed for about 200,000 years, but it is reported to have survived for 60 million years.
Undoubtedly, if humans go extinct, it's easy to imagine a massive monitor lizard re-evolving in the Australian environment, which will only have to wait for the apex predator humans to leave; And then they can come back and regain access to the top of the food chain.