#varanids

Final design and illustration drawing for the varanid dragon commission. This will be painted in watercolour soon! It's based on arboreal monitor lizard species, blue, black and emerald tree monitors.

And so it finally happened, the next part of my redesign/refinement of Dragons Of The World is out.

Eurovenator is was an important influence for European dragon mythology and until late medieval times was still present in Europe itself. because it is such an important species in research and culture I put a little bit more effort into explaining it's anatomy.

And yet, this is a very brief description, many topics I don't even touch on and the anatomy remains surface level. Future entries will hopefully enlighten you more about the anatomical, behavioral and physiological oddities of this clade.

Little Savannah Monitor currently in quarantine because I’m a sucker for skinny little babies that need help. This picture is after he’s been with me for a week and doesn’t even begin to show how thin this nugget was when he first came home.

Got an exciting commission by an anonymous client to design a dragon based on varanids (the group including komodo dragons and monitor lizards.)

These are some concept sketches to explore the design.

The first one is based more on the arboreal species, the blue, black and emerald tree monitors. I'd imagine it gliding through thick forests looking for insects and perhaps small mammals. It has those little parietal eyes to sense sudden changes in light to give it an early warning of a bigger predator above it. With long claws to clamber up trees and I just had to include that long spiraling tail the tree monitors have!

The second is based on water monitors, with more aquatic adaptations. This one doesn't really have wings, it's based on those kind of wing/fin like structures on medieval dragon art combined with exaggerated skin folds. It also has webbed toes and more webbing on its tail.

The third is a big apex predator, largely based on komodo dragons but with a spiny tail inspired by ackie monitors, and some spines on his neck to complete the look. It has the typical dragon body plan with four legs and a pair of wings, though depending on how fantastical this project is I don't think it would be able to fly. Instead it might use them to aid in sunning and intimidating rivals.

This allowed it to effectively stretch its lower jaw to swallow very large prey whole, and then retreat into a crevice or cave to slowly digest it. Being able to engulf its prey at once meant that seperadon didn't have to defend its kills from kleptoparasites and scavengers. 

Over time, seperadon thrived in this otherwise for varanids atypical habitat. As the ecosystem provided ample prey and very little threats, descendants grew in size, eventually measuring up to four metres from head to tail. 

During the Eocene-Oligocene-Extinction Extinction Event, prey on whose abundance seperadon had relied became much rarer, and the at this point large and slow varanid went extinct alongside a large percentage of the planet's terrestrial fauna. 

Still, its legacy prevailed. Over the course of the previous million years, an offshoot of seperadon had evolved a truly unique characteristic: a lower jaw that had no mandibular symphysis at all, meaning that it split in the middle of the ‘chin’. 

This genus, protodraco, used its split jaw to more effectively catch smaller prey by simply charging at a target with its split jaw open, and closing it around the prey. 

Over a period of more than thirty million years, protodraco specialized further and developed a series of remarkable features: it re-evolved a pharyngeal jaw (otherwise only found in fish), increased the mobility and strength of its split jaw, and gradually extended the length of its jaws further and further. 

Around the time the first humans began to roam the earth, protodraco’s descendants reached their final form: draco draco, the Great Dragon. 

Dragons reach sizes of up to five meters head to tail, making them the largest extant varanids. As most varanids, they are venomous. Most remarkable, of course, is what became of their jaw:

A dragon’s skull makes up almost 40% of its body length (tail excluded), and its split lower jaw opens up to 300°. When open and spread out, the skin of the dragon’s cheeks stretches wide. This is not only used as a deimatic display, but also has a more practical application - it can be used to glide! 

The jaw bone, studded with teeth, can move quickly and forcefully enough to even allow the dragon to lunge forwards or upwards very rapidly, and can be used to extend the range of a gliding dragon. 

The ‘wings’ also are mobile enough to function as a rudimentary pair of legs, and are (especially in combination with the dragon's venom, which as in all varanids is secreted from the lower jaw) fearsome weapons. 

They hunt as ambush predators, making use of their aerial mobility and paralyzing venom. 

Dragons still primarily live in the high reaches of the Alps, although very small populations may exist in different mountainsides across Eurasia. Persistent rumors of a population in the Appalachian mountains are thus far unconfirmed. 

Though once almost hunted to extinction, dragons are nowadays considered only Near Threatened. Exacerbating factors are the persistent pseudoscientific claims that various dragon body parts may function as medicine, and the continued attacks on humans. 

Earlier, I did mention that Quinkana was Pleistocene Australia’s “second-biggest land predator”.  While the biggest was not a crocodylomorph, it was a reptile, and it was impressive enough for me to include it here.  It was Megalania - the biggest lizard in history.*

(Image by Vlad Konstantinov.)

Unfortunately, “Megalania” might not actually be a valid name.  Based on its similarities to surviving varanid monitor lizards in every way but size, it’s been proposed that Megalania was actually just a very large species of Varanus.  However, “megalania” has been dubbed an acceptable vernacular name, and so I’m going to use it.

The megalania was somewhere around twenty-five feet long, making it the largest land predator of Pleistocene Australia.  However, “marsupial lions” and terrestrial crocodiles were likely occupying all available apex-predator niches, and their fossils are far more common than the megalania’s were.  This means that the megalania was likely never the dominant predator at any point.  It was probably a carrion-eater that occasionally took down live prey, like the modern-day Komodo dragon.

(Above: Komodo dragons eating a beached dolphin carcass.)

Based on the possible presence of venom in some monitor lizard species, it’s been suggested that the megalania might have been venomous as well.  If this were the case, it would make the megalania the largest known venomous animal.

The megalania went extinct approximately 40,000 years ago.  Although it’s sometimes believed to have been driven extinct by humans, climate change was probably a bigger factor.  A reptile of such massive size would likely have been unable to withstand environmental changes.

When scientific evidence is taken into account, the popular conception of human-megalania interactions is fairly sensationalized.  The megalania was probably not a cold, calculating eating machine that made a habit of tearing up early man, and man probably did not valiantly fight back against the reptile menace and drive the megalania back to Hell from whence it came.  The megalania was not a monstrous hell-beast.  It was just an animal - one that we unfortunately can no longer observe.