Giant Killer Lizards May Have Terrorized But Got Wiped Out By Ice Age Australians

Australians had it bad during the last Ice Age. Research shows that the Australians had to fight lizards even during the frozen times.

However, the lizards had it worse, as the battles between the human and lizard species led to the latter's extinction.

Researchers in Central Queensland found that both the species, ie the giant apex predator lizards and human ancestors were contemporaries, the University of Queensland reported.

"Our jaws dropped when we found a tiny fossil from a giant lizard during a two [meter] deep excavation in one of the Capricorn Caves, near Rockhampton," said UQ vertebrate palaeontologist Gilbert Price. "We can't tell if the bone is from a Komodo dragon, which once roamed Australia, or an even bigger species like the extinct Megalania monitor lizard, which weighed about 500 [kilograms] and grew up to six [meters] long."

How did these lizards die out?

"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. "Humans can only now be considered as potential drivers of their extinction."

While lizard bones were found in the Capricorn Caves, the scientists wondered what the source of the bones was.

"This study also begs the question-what else is entombed in our caves and what else can we learn?" said Capricorn Caves manager Ann Augusteyn.

Read more about it in the original article, published in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews.