The Kumi Lizard is similar to what moniter lizard that was part of a megafaunal assemblage that inhabited southern Australia during the Pleistocene?
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Kumi Lizard The Kumi Lizard is a cryptid reptile, possibly a giant monitor lizard, which allegedly once lived in New Zealand. It is similar to the giant extinct Australian lizard Megalania except that it allegedly lives in trees.
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Megalania Megalania ("Megalania prisca" or "Varanus priscus") is an extinct giant goanna or monitor lizard. They were part of a megafaunal assemblage that inhabited southern Australia during the Pleistocene. The youngest fossil remains date to around 50,000 years ago. The first aboriginal settlers of Australia might have encountered them.
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Thylacoleonidae Thylacoleonidae is a family of extinct meat-eating marsupials from Australia, referred to as marsupial lions. The best known is "Thylacoleo carnifex", also called the marsupial lion. The clade ranged from the Late Oligocene to the Pleistocene, with some species the size of a possum and others as large as a leopard. The discovery of a new small sized species indicates a higher ecological diversity than previously thought.
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Short-tailed hopping mouse The Short-tailed Hopping Mouse ("Notomys amplus") is an extinct species of mouse from open stony (gibber) plains with desert grasses, low shrubs and sand ridges in the area around Charlotte Waters, near Alice Springs in Central Australia. It weighed 80 grams. The last record is from June 1896. Only two complete specimens were collected, probably from Aborigines. It was largest of all Australian Hopping-mice recorded in Australia; at the weight of 100 g it was twice the mass of any other species of Hopping-mice. This species was predominantly brown in colour, its tail probably being as long as its body. The Short-tailed Hopping Mouse's decline was due to a number of factors, some of which were being hunted by predators such as foxes, cats and habitat alterations.
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Kalisuchus Kalisuchus ('Kali's crocodile from the Rewan') was a basal archosauromorph known from remains unearthed from the Arcadia Formation (Rewan Group) of the Early Triassic of the Crater, Southwest of Rolleston, south central Queensland, Australia. It was named after Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction, a reference to the fact that the remains, including skull, vertebrae, limb and girdle were found as small fragments. The type species of "Kalisuchus" is "K. rewanensis". "Kalisuchus" is the oldest archosauromorph known in Australia. It and "Tasmaniosaurus" are the only archosauromorphs known from the Triassic of Australia. Its body length is estimated at about 3 metres. The ankle bones are strikingly similar to those of a crocodile, and it is surmised that like other proterosuchids, it lived an amphibious and predatory life. It had a broad snout which curved slightly over the lower jaw. Its limbs were slender, and its neck was longer than is typical in a proterosuchid. Thulborn (1979) considered it closely related to "Proterosuchus".
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Heavy-footed moa The heavy-footed moa ("Pachyornis elephantopus") is a species of moa from the family Dinornithidae. This moa was widespread on the South Island only, and its habitat was the lowlands (shrublands, dunelands, grasslands, and forests). It was a ratite and a member of the order Struthioniformes. The Struthioniformes are flightless birds with a sternum without a keel. They also have a distinctive palate. The origin of these birds is becoming clearer as it is now believed that early ancestors of these birds were able to fly and flew to the southern areas in which they have been found.
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Archaeomaenidae Archaeomaenidae is an extinct family of pachycormid fish found in freshwater environments of Jurassic New South Wales of Australia, Asia, and Antarctica, and in Lower Cretaceous New South Wales.
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Agilisaurus Agilisaurus ( ; 'agile lizard') is a genus of ornithischian dinosaur from the Middle Jurassic Period of what is now eastern Asia. The name is derived from the Latin ""agilis"" meaning 'agile' and the Greek ""sauros"" meaning 'lizard', and refers to the agility suggested by its lightweight skeleton and long legs. Its tibia (lower leg bone) 207.0 mm in length, was longer than its femur (upper leg bone) 199.0 mm in length, which indicates that it was an extremely fast bipedal runner, using its long tail for balance, although it may have walked on all fours when browsing for food. It was a small herbivore, about 2 meters (6.5 feet) in length, and like all ornithischians, it had a beak-like structure on the ends of both upper and lower jaws to help it crop plant material.
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Clevosaurus Clevosaurus (CLEE-vo-SORE-us) (Gloucester lizard) is an extinct genus of sphenodontian reptile from the Triassic and the Jurassic periods of Nova Scotia, Great Britain, ("C. bairdi") and Yunnan ("C. mcgilli"). "Clevosaurus" was extremely similar to the modern tuatara in almost every way; the two genera differ in only certain features of the teeth and skull anatomies, as well as size. "Clevosaurus" was smaller than the modern tuatara. "Clevosaurus" possibly ate plants as well as insects, as suggested by the form of the teeth. Fossils of "Clevosaurus", as well as other sphenodontians, early mammals and dinosaurs have been found in ancient cave systems of Great Britain. "Clevosaurus" is now believed to have had Pangaean distribution.
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Viti Levu scrubfowl The Viti Levu scrubfowl ("Megapodius amissus"), also known as the Fiji scrubfowl or lost megapode, is an extinct megapode that was endemic to Fiji. The epithet "amissus", from Latin "lost", refers to its extinction. Subfossil remains were collected from the Udit cave at Wainibuku on the island of Viti Levu in October 1998 by Trevor Worthy, G. Udy and S. Mataraba, and described by Worthy in 2000. The holotype is held by the Museum of New Zealand (reg. no: S.037468).
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Black-palmed rock monitor The black-palmed rock monitor (Varanus glebopalma) is a member of the Varanidae family found in Australia. Also known as the twilight monitor or the long-tailed rock monitor, it is a member of the subgenus "Odatria", and is found in the northern part of Australia in the Northern Territory and Western Australia, as well as Queensland. Specifically, its distribution extends from Mount Isa in the east to the Kimberleys in the west. Its habitat is areas of rock escarpment, and large populations may be found in small areas.
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Banksia kingii Banksia kingii is an extinct species of tree or shrub in the plant genus "Banksia". It is known only from fossil leaves and fruiting "cones" found in Late Pleistocene sediment at Melaleuca Inlet in western Tasmania. These were discovered by Deny King in the workings of his tin mine. The climate was most likely as cool as or cooler than it is at Melaleuca now (an average yearly temperature of 11.5C, a average temperature of the coldest month of 4.5°C, a mean maximum temperature of the warmest month of 20°C)
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Mussaurus Mussaurus (meaning "mouse lizard") is a genus of herbivorous sauropodomorph dinosaur that lived in southern Argentina during the Late Triassic, about 215 million years ago. It receives its name from the small size of the skeletons of juvenile and infant individuals, which were once the only known specimens of the genus. However, since "Mussaurus" is now known from adult specimens, the name is something of a misnomer; adults possibly reached 3 m (10 ft) in length, and weighed 70 kg . "Mussaurus" possesses anatomical features suggesting a close, possibly transitional evolutionary relationship with true sauropods.
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Prolacerta Prolacerta (meaning "before lizard" in Latin) is an extinct genus of archosauromorph reptile from the Early Triassic. It includes one species, "Prolacerta broomi", named in 1935 from the Karoo Basin of South Africa. Remains of "Prolacerta" have also been found from Antarctica. "Prolacerta" is traditionally classified as a member of Prolacertiformes, a group of basal archosauromorphs that also includes protorosaurids and tanystropheids. However, most recent phylogenetic analyses place it in a more derived position as the sister taxon of Archosauriformes, thereby making the traditional Prolacertiformes a polyphyletic group. "Prolacertiformes" is currently restricted by definition to "Prolaceta" alone, and the rest of the traditional prolacertiformes are known as protorosaurs.
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Nothomyrmecia Nothomyrmecia, also known as the dinosaur ant or dawn ant, is a rare genus of ants consisting of a single species, Nothomyrmecia macrops. It lives in South Australia, nesting in old-growth mallee woodland and "Eucalyptus" woodland. The full distribution of "Nothomyrmecia" has never been assessed, and it is unknown how widespread it really is; its potential range may be wider if it does favour old-growth mallee woodland. Possible threats to its survival include habitat destruction and climate change. "Nothomyrmecia" is most active when it is cold because workers encounter fewer competitors and predators such as "Camponotus" and "Iridomyrmex", and it also increases hunting success. Thus, the increase of temperature may prevent them from foraging and very few areas would be suitable for the ant to live in. As a result, the IUCN lists the ant as Critically Endangered.
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Flora of Australia The flora of Australia comprises a vast assemblage of plant species estimated to over 20,000 vascular and 14,000 non-vascular plants, 250,000 species of fungi and over 3,000 lichens. The flora has strong affinities with the flora of Gondwana, and below the family level has a highly endemic angiosperm flora whose diversity was shaped by the effects of continental drift and climate change since the Cretaceous. Prominent features of the Australian flora are adaptations to aridity and fire which include scleromorphy and serotiny. These adaptations are common in species from the large and well-known families Proteaceae ("Banksia"), Myrtaceae ("Eucalyptus" - gum trees), and Fabaceae ("Acacia" - wattle).
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Saurophaganax Saurophaganax ("lord of lizard-eaters") is a genus of allosaurid dinosaur from the Morrison Formation of Late Jurassic Oklahoma (latest Kimmeridgian age, about 151 million years ago), USA. Some paleontologists consider it to be a species of "Allosaurus" ("A. maximus"). "Saurophaganax" represents a very large Morrison allosaurid characterized by horizontal laminae at the bases of the dorsal neural spines above the transverse processes, and "meat-chopper" chevrons. The maximum size of "S. maximus" has been estimated at anywhere from 10.5 m to 13 m in length, and around 3 t in weight.
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Hypogeomys australis Hypogeomys australis is an extinct rodent from central and southeastern Madagascar. First described in 1903, it is larger than its close relative, the living "Hypogeomys antimena", which occurs further west, but otherwise similar. Average length of the femur (upper leg bone) is 72.1 mm, compared to 63.8 mm in "H. antimena". One of the few extinct rodents of Madagascar, it survived to at least around 1536 BP based on radiocarbon dating. Little is known of its ecology, but it may have lived in burrows like its living relative and eaten some arid-adapted plants.
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Tasmaniosaurus Tasmaniosaurus ('Lizard from Tasmania') is an archosaur of the family Proterosuchidae, known from the Knocklofty Formation (Early Triassic) of West Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. It is Australia's most complete Triassic reptile fossil; the entire skeleton has been preserved. The type species is "T. triassicus". The genus was first described in 1978, but was first named as a "nomen nudum" in 1974.
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Mammals of Australia The mammals of Australia have a rich fossil history, as well as a variety of extant mammalian species, dominated by the marsupials, but also including monotremes and placentals. The marsupials evolved to fill specific ecological niches, and in many cases they are physically similar to the placental mammals in Eurasia and North America that occupy similar niches, a phenomenon known as convergent evolution. For example, the top predator in Australia, the Tasmanian tiger, bore a striking resemblance to canids such as the gray wolf; gliding possums and flying squirrels have similar adaptations enabling their arboreal lifestyle; and the numbat and anteaters are both digging insectivores. Most of Australia's mammals are herbivores.
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Moanasaurus Moanasaurus (From Māori "moana" "sea" and Greek "sauros" "lizard"; meaning "Sea Lizard") was a genus of mosasaur from the Late Cretaceous period. Its fossil remains have been discovered in the North Island of New Zealand. "Moanasaurus" was a very large mosasaurine known originally from a disarticulated skull, vertebrae, ribs and paddle bones. It reached 12 m in length and the skull is 78 cm, which shows that "Moanasaurus" was one of the largest in the family of mosasaurinae.
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Australian logrunner The Australian logrunner ("Orthonyx temminckii") is a species of bird that is endemic to eastern Australia where it uses unique foraging techniques and adaptations to search for its food on the floors of temperate, subtropical, or tropical moist lowland forests in south-eastern Australia. Until 2002, it was widely considered to be conspecific with the New Guinea logrunner, but studies showed the two differ significantly, both genetically and vocally.