The perentie is Australia's largest lizard. This impressive monitor figures prominently in the creation myths of the Pitjantjatjara people:

"This is the story of the Perentie Man - he was living in a distant place without a grindstone, he only had a very poor quality grindstone and he was trying to grind the seed from wild pigweed, and he was having to eat these rough seedcakes. And he thought: "Ah, someone is grinding, there is the sound of grinding coming from a long way away." And having heard he quickly travelled to that other place. And he travelled and travelled and then he saw that other grindstone. And he took it, he stole it and carried it back to his camp. As the Perentie Man travelled he created many landforms in the Musgrave and Mann Ranges and he vomited up many different kinds of grass seeds and vegetable food as he went."

  • AcidSmiley [she/her]
    ·
    3 years ago

    It turns out monitor lizards are also venomous. People used to think that the bites of large monitors cause sepsis from bacteria they cultivate in their mouth, but it seems the problems from monitor bites, which often take ages to heal, stem from the fact they actually have venom glands. They secrete a mix of substances that work as anticuagulants and vasodilators (meaning they stop blood from clotting while also widening blodd vessels), which causes their already quite nasty bites to swell and to bleed profusely.

    What's puzzling about that is that all monitors have these glands - not just large pursuit predators like komodo dragons, who may benefit from this when they hunt deer and water buffalo, but even the small ones like ackies or kimberly rock monitors, who feed almost entirely by snatching up invertebrates and who do not need venom to overpower that kind of prey at all. It's assumed the venom mostly doesn't serve as a weapon, but as an aid in digesting their food.