Lace Monitor

The lace monitor is a large and powerful lizard preferring the semi-arid to humid forests of eastern Australia. Living for around 20 years in the wild, the monitor lizards is a long-lived reptile. Monitor lizards are the only lizard with a deeply forked tongue to pick up chemical cues. Despite their large size, monitor lizards are arboreal and often live in tree holes. Recently, research shows that much like the giant Komodo dragons of Indonesia, lace monitor lizards possess venom in their saliva. A bite will cause infection in the prey animal weakening it for an easy kill or resulting in instant paralysis of small animals. In humans a bite resulted in “rapid swelling (noticeable within minutes), dizziness, localized disruption of blood clotting and shooting pain extending from the affected digit up to the elbow, with some symptoms lasting for several hours” from a paper by Fry et al (2006).

Lace Monitors Were Found In:

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