As if Australians didn’t have enough deadly wildlife to contend with, now a new study has confirmed that they once existed with giant killer lizards.
New research out of the University of Queensland have concluded that Australia’s earliest inhabitants had to share the same living space with giant Komodo dragon-like lizards during the last Ice Age.
“Our jaws dropped when we found a tiny fossil from a giant lizard during a two metre deep excavation in one of the Capricorn Caves, near Rockhampton,” said University of Queensland vertebrate palaeoecologist Gilbert Price.
Price said that they are unsure as to whether or not the bone comes from a Komodo dragon — once native to Australia — or a larger species such as the Megalania which is now extinct.
During the last Ice Age Australia was home to huge lizards and nine-metre long inland crocodiles.
Fortunately, the predators have shrunk in size.
The largest living lizard in Australia is the perentie, which can grow to a length of up to two metres.
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