Megalania - man eating giant lizard

[war_machine]

Found this on youtube and thought it was rather interesting.

This beast is somewhat believed to have died out about 20,000 years ago.

However some researchers believe otherwise, while showing two large casts of footprints. Can they be one and the same giant lizard? Or a relative?

See for yourself and decide:

Do you think it could still be alive today?

[sumthingnice60]

I doubt it's alive today. Something that big (i believe it was around 20ft) would need lots of food and space in order to live so it's territory would eventually intersect human territory. But it's still a scary thought that it once existed.

[capoeiranger]

We've discussed this before, try to search Megalania in our search facility. It was extinct because of humans. The forest burning was the cause, not because the humans literally burn them to death, no...but the forest burning made them lost their prey and died out of starvation. However, there some (minor, only 2) reports that large, lizard-like creature was seen in Australia, I think the report goes back about a decade ago.

[kenshinx]

I doubt it's alive today. Something that big (i believe it was around 20ft) would need lots of food and space in order to live so it's territory would eventually intersect human territory. But it's still a scary thought that it once existed.

the longest lizards today is almost long as 20ft ya know, and i'm sure the biggest lizard (komodo) are capable to eat human

maybe they not as large as megalania , but still creepy

Croc Monitors

[avs76]

We've discussed this before, try to search Megalania in our search facility. It was extinct because of humans. The forest burning was the cause, not because the humans literally burn them to death, no...but the forest burning made them lost their prey and died out of starvation. However, there some (minor, only 2) reports that large, lizard-like creature was seen in Australia, I think the report goes back about a decade ago.

That's interesting, I have never heard of that. I will do some research and see what I can find.

[Archosaur]

I suspect that megalania is probably gone for good. While it died recently enough that survivors might be lurking somewhere in the wilderness, most likely it suffered the same fate as the cave bear, saber-toothed tiger, and dire wolf: extinction at the hands of man.

[draconic chronicler]

I suspect that megalania is probably gone for good. While it died recently enough that survivors might be lurking somewhere in the wilderness, most likely it suffered the same fate as the cave bear, saber-toothed tiger, and dire wolf: extinction at the hands of man.

But was early man really so capable against such formidable predators? Why didn't man wipe out less ferocious bears, wolves, tigers and reptiles then? Virtually every human culture believed they were "protected" by thier own "dragon god", who also gave them the knowledge of agriculture, animal husbandry, laws, etc. Perhaps these were real creatures assigned to these tribes by a higher intelligence who wished to insure the survivial of mankind, and these "dragon gods" were just some modified prehistoric reptile whose task was to destroy the biggest threats to early man.

But back to Megalania, having disappeared so recently, viable DNA could be extracted from its bones, and cloned with Komodo dragon eggs to possibly bring it back..

[capoeiranger]

^Might not be as easier as that DC, however, it is still a cool idea. But then we have to kill it again, otherwise it can be dangerous to us should it ever adapted and become uncotrollable, so yeah, cloning it will be just like saying a word you should've say long ago, but decided not to day it because it was unpolite. I remember I discussed this creature's extinction with you however, almost a year ago. Right?

[Archosaur]

Maybe early man could have killed them, but not in direct combat. However, by destroying their environment, prey, or by setting entrapping range fire they may have. Similarly, early man killed mammoths by running them off of embankments, and cave bears by sealing their caves while they wintered, creatures they were unlikely to prevail against directly, either. Why were less threatening creatures not exterminated? Many were, but they were not as spectacular: prehistoric American natives exterminated the horse (though their descendants recognized their utility when they were re-introduced).

DC: Could dragons have had something to do with the disappearance of the super-predators? If one allows for the possibility of intelligent fire-breathing dragons, then why not? Many of the die-offs do often correlate with large wild-fires. Also: there are legends of animosity between dragons and tigers (China) and dragons and wolves (Europe). Previously, I had laughed these off: how could such creatures (as impressive as they are) threaten a dragon? But, in the context of a dragons protecting it's "tribe" from super-sized prehistoric predators, it makes some sense.

Personally, I would love to see this species returned. As for the danger: while early man would have been in peril, modern man has the means to deal with any escapee. We are not talking about Jurassic Park's super-intelligent raptors here.

[kanji]

Maybe early man could have killed them, but not in direct combat. However, by destroying their environment, prey, or by setting entrapping range fire they may have. Similarly, early man killed mammoths by running them off of embankments, and cave bears by sealing their caves while they wintered, creatures they were unlikely to prevail against directly, either. Why were less threatening creatures not exterminated? Many were, but they were not as spectacular: prehistoric American natives exterminated the horse (though their descendants recognized their utility when they were re-introduced).

DC: Could dragons have had something to do with the disappearance of the super-predators? If one allows for the possibility of intelligent fire-breathing dragons, then why not? Many of the die-offs do often correlate with large wild-fires. Also: there are legends of animosity between dragons and tigers (China) and dragons and wolves (Europe). Previously, I had laughed these off: how could such creatures (as impressive as they are) threaten a dragon? But, in the context of a dragons protecting it's "tribe" from super-sized prehistoric predators, it makes some sense.

Personally, I would love to see this species returned. As for the danger: while early man would have been in peril, modern man has the means to deal with any escapee. We are not talking about Jurassic Park's super-intelligent raptors here.

Why does everyone insist that early man could not have contended with large lizards or even dinosaurs. Early man was a lot more intelligent than we give him credit for. Sure a T-Rex catches a guy away from his cave or town, ya he is toast, but a group of hunters could likely have taken down a large beast like that simply using spears and bows. Hell even a pit with spikes at the bottom would have been possible. These people were not the stupid grunting hairy brutes that cinema paints them out to be.

[sumthingnice60]

Why does everyone insist that early man could not have contended with large lizards or even dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs and man didn't exist in the same time period. As for lizards, it is possible but I know that if I saw a 25ft lizard coming towards me, I would run like hell in the other direction.

[draconic chronicler]

Why does everyone insist that early man could not have contended with large lizards or even dinosaurs. Early man was a lot more intelligent than we give him credit for. Sure a T-Rex catches a guy away from his cave or town, ya he is toast, but a group of hunters could likely have taken down a large beast like that simply using spears and bows. Hell even a pit with spikes at the bottom would have been possible. These people were not the stupid grunting hairy brutes that cinema paints them out to be.

I think you have been playing too much "dungeons and dragons" or just seen that idiotic "Beowulf" cartoon. I know you generally believe what the Bible says, and here we see the ode of the Leviathan, a fire spewing, scale covered reptile which some think is a living dinosaur in the time of men, or a "dragon". If you read it in Job, it is very clear that the iron age weapons could not penetrate its hide, and the same would probably be true of dinosaurs. We have actually found their mummified skin, and it was covered with bony nodules. Musket balls have bounced off the back of alligators, a a much larger carnosaur would be even more armored. Just because you see bad films or comic books of humans stabbing huge dinosuars does not mean it is really possible.

I recall one goofy Christian "dinosaurs lived with Humans" websited that thought the account of Siegfried killing the Dragon Fafner "seemed a realistic depiction of a man killing a dangrous dinosaur". Actually it was totally asinine, for any carnivorous dinosaur would have had an excellent sense of smell and would have sniffed out a stinking, unwashed and certainly drunk Germanic barbarian hiding in a hole trying to stab it in its belly (not that any man could pierce its hide with a sword in the first place.

There is one crocodile in africa called Gustave that has supposedly killed over 300 people and is still alive, killing people. And this is at a time when people have modern firearms. I suspect a T Rex would be smarter and not bound to the water like a croc. Such creatures have superb vision, hearing and smell, and any human digging a spike trap would probably be toast about five minutes after the whole was started. And group of humans is gint to dig a forty foot square hole to trap a forty foot long dinosaur.

If you actually believed the bible, the giant reptiles described in it are not dumb dinosaurs, they are intelligent heavenly creatures that the ancient Rabbis themelves called Drakons. Although they clearly preyed on humans, it seemed they could only consume members of the "tribe" they were in charge of. Therefore we see Yahweh devouring his own people and animals as "sacrifices", but orders the Hebrews to slaughter the Cannanites for they belonged to Ba'al Hadad.

The monitor lizard in Australia, though dangerous, is not nearly as smart as a dinosaur. Once they learned its behaviour, humans could avoid it, and it gradually died out when all the megafauna it preyed onl were killed by man.

Nope, no evidence at all that dinosuars lived with men. But every human culture did believe dragons lived with men. But they were not walnut brained dinosuars, these creatures talked and supposedly gave mankind laws, taught them technologies, agriculture , etc., just as the Yahweh dragon of the Bible, the dragons of China, Quetzalcoatl and Kulakan of America, Enki and Enlil of Mesopotamia, etc. etc. But they all talk and were worshipped as gods, so they probably were not dumb diosaurs, and apparently none have died for there are no bones of dinosaurs or "dragons" found after the Cretaceous. But as I have already mentioned, the idea that humans could kill such creatures with normal weapons of the period is utterly ridiculous.

[draconic chronicler]

Maybe early man could have killed them, but not in direct combat. However, by destroying their environment, prey, or by setting entrapping range fire they may have. Similarly, early man killed mammoths by running them off of embankments, and cave bears by sealing their caves while they wintered, creatures they were unlikely to prevail against directly, either. Why were less threatening creatures not exterminated? Many were, but they were not as spectacular: prehistoric American natives exterminated the horse (though their descendants recognized their utility when they were re-introduced).

DC: Could dragons have had something to do with the disappearance of the super-predators? If one allows for the possibility of intelligent fire-breathing dragons, then why not? Many of the die-offs do often correlate with large wild-fires. Also: there are legends of animosity between dragons and tigers (China) and dragons and wolves (Europe). Previously, I had laughed these off: how could such creatures (as impressive as they are) threaten a dragon? But, in the context of a dragons protecting it's "tribe" from super-sized prehistoric predators, it makes some sense.

Personally, I would love to see this species returned. As for the danger: while early man would have been in peril, modern man has the means to deal with any escapee. We are not talking about Jurassic Park's super-intelligent raptors here.

Yes, I think it quite likely if we are to accept the existence of Dragons. As the bible explains, each of these Bene Elohim were given a human tribe to look after. Like Shepherds they seemed to occasionally cull their tribes, but they likewise protected them, and if these super wolves, lions and bears were a threat to their humans, they would still be nothing to a dragon. This may explain why the "Watchers" WERE dragons. A question we might ask however, were the dragons protecting humans, bringing rain, teaching domestication, etc, because they were "kind" or because they simply looked at us, as we do our domestic animals? Perhaps "The Creator" knew the real motives of His dragon assistants, but this did not matter for it still insured the survival of the human species.

[Incorrigible1]

DC, while I respectfully disagree completely with your take on dragons, historic and earlier, I must say you've hit the nail on the head regarding any slim chance any group of men armed with primitive weapons had of killing a large carnivorous dinosaur. Not that they ever coexisted.

I'm not dismissing the ability of prehistoric men to harvest mega-fauna of the mammalian type, but I'm also giving sufficient credit to just how enormously fierce, terrifying, and efficient a killing machine any large carnivorous dinosaur must have been!

[capoeiranger]

Okay guys, I'll help you out pointing out the way of extinction of this giant lizard of Aussie, Megalania Prisca, and remember, I ain't talking about T-Rex, Spinosaurs or other dinos, this is no dinos, no dragons, this is a Megafauna, and one of the earliest mankind's contribution to animal extinction:

It was extinct partly because of humans. The forest burning was the cause, not because the humans literally burn them to death, no...but the forest burning made them lost their prey and died out of starvation.

That was from my first post on this thread. The Aborigines practiced forest burning to clear the land for plantation, but accidentally (or incidentally), this has killed some of the main prey of the Megalania Prisca, as this burning goes on every year and eventually it gets bigger fire and wider area, it left the Megalania starved and eventually died out one by one to starvation.

Megalania

More

[draconic chronicler]

Okay guys, I'll help you out pointing out the way of extinction of this giant lizard of Aussie, Megalania Prisca, and remember, I ain't talking about T-Rex, Spinosaurs or other dinos, this is no dinos, no dragons, this is a Megafauna, and one of the earliest mankind's contribution to animal extinction:

That was from my first post on this thread. The Aborigines practiced forest burning to clear the land for plantation, but accidentally (or incidentally), this has killed some of the main prey of the Megalania Prisca, as this burning goes on every year and eventually it gets bigger fire and wider area, it left the Megalania starved and eventually died out one by one to starvation.

Megalania

More

I have always fully agreed with that consensus and stated it in the earlier discussion. What I don't believe is the aborigines with their flint tools actually killed them in nonsensical adolescent-minded "dragonslayer" fashion. Though I doubt they "starved to death", but with low fat reserves, the females would refuse to mate and lay eggs, out of their own self preservation, for it would tax an underfed monitor too much. So the adults would gradually die of old age leaivng no offspring to replace them, and to make matters worse, their close relatives, the Komodo dragons eat juveniles of thier own species when there isn't much other food around, so with no more easy to kill giant birds and marsupials, they probably ate their own young.

[Yautjan_pride]

They have a cast skeleton of this thing at the museum of Melbourne, id like to think it still alive but i would have to say it aint due to the fect that we really would have found it by now :/

[shadyfeature]

hey all havent posted anything in ages, but this topic made me look twice im from australia i live in sydney and ive never heard of this giant lizard sounds bloody intresting. i rekon it could still be alive i mean ive been bush walking heaps of times before and theres plenty of places folks wont go because theres to many dangers ie. wild dogs and that sort of stuff and people just dont realise how fast the outback is and in my opinion no one can say anything dose or dosent exist with out proof. dose anyone know how big it was just for sh**s and giggles....

[capoeiranger]

hey all havent posted anything in ages, but this topic made me look twice im from australia i live in sydney and ive never heard of this giant lizard sounds bloody intresting. i rekon it could still be alive i mean ive been bush walking heaps of times before and theres plenty of places folks wont go because theres to many dangers ie. wild dogs and that sort of stuff and people just dont realise how fast the outback is and in my opinion no one can say anything dose or dosent exist with out proof. dose anyone know how big it was just for sh**s and giggles....

for sh**s and giggles, please click the link that I've provide you in uh, say, about three post above.

[shadyfeature]

jee thanks mate, thats some intresting stuff. i want to go looking for one but i bet if found one id wish i hadent is amazing how hardcore a predator this creature would have been. nothing would have been able to kill it

[draconic chronicler]

jee thanks mate, thats some intresting stuff. i want to go looking for one but i bet if found one id wish i hadent is amazing how hardcore a predator this creature would have been. nothing would have been able to kill it

Monitor lizards are daytime hunters. And considering Megalania's size, it might be possible to see it from satellite photos if people were patient enough to carefully study them. Maybe they don't even do satellite photographs of the australian outback.

[The Carnivore]

the longest lizards today is almost long as 20ft ya know, and i'm sure the biggest lizard (komodo) are capable to eat human

maybe they not as large as megalania , but still creepy

Croc Monitors

True, there is a species of monitor lizard rhat grows to 15 feet long, but it has nowhere near the mass of a Megalania. I think it's safe to say that they're extinct.

[Mad Manfred]

While watching I was thinking "well, the outback is a pretty big, desolate place...it's possible" then I saw the location...Woodstock. Nothing that big could remain undetected for 200 years...especially a place that sits between Sydney and Canberra.

[itsnotoutthere]

Why does everyone insist that early man could not have contended with large lizards or even dinosaurs. Early man was a lot more intelligent than we give him credit for. Sure a T-Rex catches a guy away from his cave or town, ya he is toast, but a group of hunters could likely have taken down a large beast like that simply using spears and bows. Hell even a pit with spikes at the bottom would have been possible. These people were not the stupid grunting hairy brutes that cinema paints them out to be.

The end of the dinosaurs & the emergence of man were millenia apart, so the image you suggest just never happened, & belongs to third rate B movies.

Com'on guys let get a bit real.

[itsnotoutthere]

But was early man really so capable against such formidable predators? Why didn't man wipe out less ferocious bears, wolves, tigers and reptiles then? Virtually every human culture believed they were "protected" by thier own "dragon god", who also gave them the knowledge of agriculture, animal husbandry, laws, etc. Perhaps these were real creatures assigned to these tribes by a higher intelligence who wished to insure the survivial of mankind, and these "dragon gods" were just some modified prehistoric reptile whose task was to destroy the biggest threats to early man.

But back to Megalania, having disappeared so recently, viable DNA could be extracted from its bones, and cloned with Komodo dragon eggs to possibly bring it back..

You just couldn't let it go without mentioning dragons could you.

Somebody please put him streight about dragons.