464 
G. J. DE FEJÉRVÁR Y 
Hand in Hand geht ... .» It will be a matter for future investigations to 
establish whether Megalania bore also the other symptômes accompanying 
Acromegaly and decrease in Sexuality, as for instance the thickening of 
phalanges or a «Gewichtszunahme der Extremitäten». 1 
It was also stated in the preceeding chapter that among recent Sau- 
rians the Varanidae — thus the largest ones — offer a comparatively 
larger pituary cavity than other Lacertilians. 
A parallelism between the Dinosauria and the Megalanidae or Vara¬ 
nidae could also be established in the fact ot these animals bearing a re¬ 
latively small head in comparison to the large-sized body; such pheno¬ 
mena are known in Gigantism — often connected with Cretinism — and 
the Varanidae, this par excellence ancestral group, ought to be 
designated certainly as more primitive in their sensorial-life, — thus less 
«intelligent» — as other modern groups. I should like to point to the fact 
that this unequal relation between the proportions of head 
and body is, as many cases in P h y 1 o g e n y váll prove, a characte¬ 
ristic of (pathogene) Gigantism. We know giants in the Animal-World 
the growth of which should not be confused with the (pathogene) Gigan¬ 
tism, and in all these we shall see a proportionate state between 
the measurements of head and body. Lacerta Simonyi Steind. or 
Lac. ocellata Daud. are giants among the modern Lizards of the genus 
Lacerta, but their head and body bear a normal relation in size to 
eachother, — just as in the smallest species of them — in the same way 
as the capacity of their cerebral cavity presents the normal proportion to 
that containing their pituary gland. 
As to the descent of Megalanidae it would be nowadays 
a hard task to throw more light on the subject ; the general characters 
permit us to classify with much probability this group, in the Suborder 
Platynota searching for its ancestors in this direction. The morphological 
characters present nevertheless so important differences from Vara¬ 
nidae — and these differences are of so high a bionomie importance — 
that it is quite impossible to consider Megalania as a Vara- 
n i a n genus. I therefore established for it the separate family: 
Megalanidae, indicating hereby its place in the zoological System. 
Some resemblances are also present with the Agamidae or Iguanidag, 
but those are, at any rate, not of a systematical importance. 
The relationship of Megalanidae will most probably lead 
us to a common — yet unknown — stem from which also the family Va¬ 
ranidae - with which it seems to be in some genetic relation — branched 
1 Nopcsa, 1. c. 
