FOSSIL VA RA N ID AE AND MEGALA NID AE. 
359 
of view to that of zoologists and palaeontologists, which appears to me 
as systematically absolutely wrong, as I came to the 
conclusion that Megalania presents no character whatever justifying its 
systematical reference to the family Varanidae. On the contrary, the struc¬ 
ture of the vertebras shows some resemblances to that of some Agamidae, 
for which reason it might as well be ranged in this family as in the former 
one. Nevertheless considering the morphological peculiarities of repti¬ 
lian vertebrae, to which I shall yet refer in a more detailed manner, and 
from a comparative point of view, I do not find Megalania referable to 
anyone of the families known up to now and shall thus establish for it 
the Megalanidae fam.nov., which shall be examined in the II d Part of this 
work. Megalania therefore cannot be alluded to as a representative of 
Australian fossil Varanidae. 
On the other hand in 1888 Lydekker (op. cit. p. 282) mentions 
as «Varanus sp.» fragments of vertebræ (p. 283) originating from Pleisto¬ 
cene cave-deposits in the Wellington Valley (New South Wales) about 
which he writes as probably belonging to some living species, as perhaps to 
V. giganteus Gray. It is this fact which made Nopcsa (op. cit. p. 47) allude 
to these fossils — without any further examination of the remains and merely 
referring to Lydekker — under the name of V. giganteus. Later on, in 1889 
De Vis in his treatise «On Megalania and its Allies» 1 describes two fossil 
Monitors from Australian Pleistocene strata, under the names 
of V. dirus and V. emeritus; whilst in 1900 2 he deals with a fragment 
of the former’s jaw. Finally Zietz in his paper «Notes upon some Fossil 
Rept. Remains from the Warburton River, near Lake Eyre» 3 published 
in 1899, also establishes a new species, the V. warburtonensis, obtained from 
Pleistocene (?) strata. 
With regard to the systematic position and value of the above mentio¬ 
ned four Varanus, I should like to point out that from Lydekker’s «Vara¬ 
nus sp.» no drawings nor descriptions being given by the author, it seems, 
most appropriate to inscribe these fossils provisionally under the name 
of Varanus cî. P giganteus Gray foss., and considering the necessity for 
closer investigation in the matter, the simple denomination of this form 
as «Varanus giganteus », appears to be somewhat premature on Baron 
Nopcsa’s part. 
1 Proc. Roy. Soc. of Queensland, Vol. VI, Brisbane, p, 93 — 99, five figs, on Pl. IV. 
2 A further trace of an extinct Lizard, Ann. Queensl. Mus., Brisbane, No. 5 (Occas. 
Notes), p. 6, PI. III. 
3 Trans. Proc. Rep. Roy. Soc. of - South Australia, Vol, XXIII, Adelaide, p. 
- 208 - 210 . 
