All snakes and lizards are venomous — including this biggie

7-metre-long venomous goanna:

IT WAS seven metres long, weighed well over half a tonne, and was armed with slashing venom-laden teeth that caused its megafauna prey — giant kangaroos and emus — to collapse and bleed to death.

Dr Bryan Fry is almost certain that Australia’s giant, extinct goanna, megalania prisca, was venomous, like all modern goannas and Indonesia’s huge komodo dragon.

Last week the University of Melbourne venom expert stunned the world of science — just as he did a couple of years ago. He announced that varanids, the lizard family that includes goannas and monitors, are venomous. So are all iguanids — the North and South American group that includes the diving marine iguanas of the Galapagos Islands.

Two years ago, Dr Fry announced that there was no such thing as a non-venomous snake, except for constrictor species such as pythons, boas and anacondas.

… Until Dr Fry and his colleagues published their findings in the prestigious research journal Nature last week, there were only two species on the list of venomous lizards: the desert-dwelling gila monster, of the southern United States, and its cousin, the beaded lizard of Mexico and Guatemala.

Coolio.

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