Monday, December 19, 2011

Megalania


Megalania prisca, the largest terrestrial lizard known, was a giant goanna (monitor lizard). First described from the Darling Downs in Queensland by Sir Richard Owen in 1859, Megalania lived in a variety of eastern Australian Pleistocene habitats - open forests, woodlands and perhaps grasslands.Megalania would have been a formidable reptilian predator like its relative the Komodo Dragon of Indonesia, and may have eaten large mammals, snakes, other reptiles and birds.


http://australianmuseum.net.au/Megalania-prisca

stegodon


The name Stegodon is derived from the Greek words στεγειν stegein ("to cover") and οδον odοn ("tooth") because of the distinctive ridges on the animal's molars. In the past, stegodonts were believed to be the ancestors of elephants and mammoths, but it is currently believed that they have no modern descendants. Stegodon is derived from the genus Stegolophodon, an extinct genus known from the Miocene of Asia. Stegodon is considered to be a sister group of the mammoth, as well as the elephants.

Stegodonts lived in large parts of Asia during the Pliocene and Pleistocene epochs. Some Stegodon species were among the largest of all Proboscidea, with adults being 13 feet high at the shoulder, 26 feet long, with 10 feet long nearly straight tusks. In some individuals, the tusks were so close together that the trunk probably did not lie between them but instead draped over.


weekly video

Mosasaurus



Mosasaurus
 was a large, 15-metre long aquatic carnivore from the Late Cretaceous about 90-65 million years ago. It gave its name to a group of marine lizards - Mosasaurs. Mosasaurus means 'Meuse Lizard', referring to where it was first found. It fed on such prey as sea birds, sharks and large fish, Plio/Plesiosaurs and even other Mosasaurs.