Human ancestors lived alongside Giant Apex Predator Lizards

The living Komodo dragon and illustration showing how the osteoderm bone reinforces the scales and acts like body armor.

Gilbert Price, UQ vertebrate palaeoecologist, revealed that scientists in main Queensland were really dumbfounded after looking for indication which typically “early populace of Australia utilized impart the nation when using the ‘giant summit killer lizards”. Today, the largest lizard left in Australia is the perentie, which reaches a length of two meters.

Radiocarbon and uranium thorium testing date the tiny bone fragment to about 50,000 years ago.

The bone Price and his team found was unearthed during a dig inside one of the Capricorn Caves near Rockhampton, in northeastern Australia. This means that the predecessors were about three times bigger than the current ones today.

Both giant lizards and 25-foot-long crocodiles lived in Australia during the last ice age, and some have argued their disappearance was due to the arrival of the first humans on the continent, while others put it down to other factors.

“It’s been long-debated whether or not humans or climate change knocked off the giant lizards, alongside the rest of the megafauna”, Price said.

The extinct Megalanias could have preyed on large mammals, reptiles and birds, which would have made them food competitors for Australia’s earliest humans.

It’s actually no surprise that the researchers managed to snag a fossil. “Humans can only now be considered as potential drivers of their extinction”, says researcher Gillbert Price. It’s actually considered as the most fossil-rich site in the whole Australia.

The lizard bone was discovered within the Capricorn Caves, which caused the scientists to wonder how the bone made its way to such a odd location in the first place. The manager of Capricorn Caves, Ann Augusteyn, takes great care with her team to ensure the caves are left undisturbed for the purposes of research. Australia is known to house many creatures and it won’t be surprising that there could be more hidden beneath the surface.

The research, in collaboration with the Australian National University, the Queensland Museum and Southern Cross University, was supported by the Capricorn Caves, the Australian Research Council, the Australian Institute for Nuclear Science and Energy and community organisations such as the Ian Potter Foundation.