Welcome a new member of Darwin Museum collection – a taxidermy mount of the lace monitor or tree goanna

(Varanus varius Shaw, 1790)

Darwin museum collection of Amphibians and Reptiles has not so long ago been replenished by a new taxidermy mount of a large lace monitor, made by a museum taxidermist Oksana Mbita Ebele.

The lace monitor or tree goanna Varanus varius Shaw, 1790) is a member of the monitor lizard family. These common terrestrial and often arboreal monitors are found in eastern Australia and range from Cape Bedford on Cape York Peninsula to south-eastern South Australia.

They are mainly active from September to May, but are inactive in cooler weather and shelter in tree hollows or under fallen trees or large rocks.

The lace monitors often hunt on trees, where they can also hide if they sense danger, although they usually aggressively face the threat, rushing forward at the enemy using their claws, teeth and a powerful tail in self-defense. Wounds inflicted by a lace monitor can be very painful. Its only natural enemies are the dingo packs and crocodiles. Young monitors may also fall prey to snakes, birds of prey and other monitor lizards, including their older relatives, as well as to humans, as the lace monitor meat is part of the Aboriginal Australians traditional cuisine.

The skin of the monitor lizard was donated to Darwin museum by a taxidermist of The Zoological Museum of the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg - Yury Starikov, who brought it from Australia.

Комментарии могут оставлять только зарегистрированные пользователи