# Lace Monitor Xrays, Why you dont mess with a Lacie..



## Yogi (May 1, 2015)

Hello,
After reading a few posts recently of people wanting big monitors, I thought I would post some xrays of a lace monitor head just to give people an idea of what hides inside.








sorry for the poor quality its a photo of the xray screen.

Cheers Jacob 


P.S dont mess with a Lacie


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## Bushman (May 1, 2015)

What's the story behind this? It looks like it's wrapped in wire fencing.


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## Yogi (May 1, 2015)

This is one of my rehab lacies found on the side of the road with maggots in the nostrils. It had clearly had a head knock. Xrays showed seen the the second xray though hard to see one the poor quality a crack in the skull over the brain. After a longish rehab and alot of treatment it was realised strong and healthy. 

Cheers Jacob


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## kingofnobbys (May 2, 2015)

Got some formidable teeth in their mouths, with a business end I wouldn't want to be bitten by. I prefer to admire them from a safe distance and to let them go about their business without my interacting with or interfering with them ( I sometimes see people tossing food to them at picnic grounds - a recipy for disaster IMO ).

Would love a monitor as a pet one day , A SMALLER species , not a Lacie --- they're too much lizard for me and I'd be scared of it taking a piece out me or even worse out of wife or grandchildren BY MISTAKE.

I'll stick with skinks and dragons I think.


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## cougarstrike (May 2, 2015)

you wouldn't happen to have a xray of the pelvis area. im getting mine xrayed this year to determine sex.


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## Yogi (May 2, 2015)

Sorry I have never had one xrayed that far back best I can do is this mid body one.
View attachment 314477


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And another
View attachment 314478


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## Stevo2 (May 2, 2015)

Nice  My male tristis would like to think he's a lacie wrapped in a smaller body....


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## imported_Varanus (May 2, 2015)

Bushman said:


> What's the story behind this? It looks like it's wrapped in wire fencing.


I think that may be the hyoid process you're referring to Bushie, used to help prey items down the throat when swallowing. Here's a few more, again a rehab hit by a car.


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## Yogi (May 2, 2015)

Sorry those attachments did not work in my last post,

View attachment 314492

View attachment 314493


Cheers Jacob

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I found this, give a good look at those claws,
View attachment 314496


Cheers Jacob


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## Newts (May 3, 2015)

Hi Yogi,

Very cool images! Would you mind if I shared these x-ray photos on another site, properly sourced to you of course?

Cheers


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## Yogi (May 3, 2015)

All good with me they are incredible animals

Cheers Jacob


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## Bushman (May 3, 2015)

Yogi said:


> This is one of my rehab lacies found on the side of the road with maggots in the nostrils. It had clearly had a head knock. Xrays showed seen the the second xray though hard to see one the poor quality a crack in the skull over the brain. After a longish rehab and alot of treatment it was realised strong and healthy.
> 
> Cheers Jacob


Thanks for telling us the story behind this casualty Jacob. I think I can see the crack in the skull. Is it the diagonal fracture towards the back of the skull?
It's good to hear that it recovered well and was released strong and healthy. Good job!
Thanks for posting the x-rays up. 8)



imported_Varanus said:


> I think that may be the hyoid process you're referring to Bushie, used to help prey items down the throat when swallowing. Here's a few more, again a rehab hit by a car.


Thanks for explaining that and for posting more pics. It's very interesting. 
Just out of interest, what damage are we looking at in that specimen, if any?


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## imported_Varanus (May 4, 2015)

Apologies for the hijack, Yogi, that was "Boris" from a few years ago, he was brain injured after being hit by a car. Broken/ dislocated lower jaw and damage to the skull near the eye socket. Here's a before and after.


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## Trewin (May 4, 2015)

Makes me kida scared because i was no more than a meter away from one i found about 1.5 meters


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## baker (May 4, 2015)

They certainly are not something to mess with. Here is a photo of a lace monitor skull that I took last year during a zoology practical. 


Cheers Cameron


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## Bushman (May 5, 2015)

imported_Varanus said:


> ... that was "Boris" from a few years ago, he was brain injured after being hit by a car. Broken/ dislocated lower jaw and damage to the skull near the eye socket. Here's a before and after.


Thanks for detailing the damage and for posting those pics. He suffered significant injuries. 
Did he make a full recovery?


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## imported_Varanus (May 5, 2015)

Bushman said:


> Thanks for detailing the damage and for posting those pics. He suffered significant injuries.
> Did he make a full recovery?



Not strictly speaking, definite brain injury, loss of sight and hearing, although he could see at least partially out of one eye. I would have euthed as release back into the wild was a no go, but I thought he still had some quality of life so he's now part on an educational display in QLD.


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## Bluetongue1 (May 5, 2015)

Now that is what I call one mean mother! Great pics. Shows their awesome biting ability really well. 

A lot of people do not understand the way a monitor?s biting mechanism works or appreciate the severity of the damage that just one grab from a powerfully built individual can inflict.

Most lizard jaws operate like a pair of scissors with one pivot point. The initial pressure this can exert is very high, as the total force is concentrated on a small area of contact between the object and the jaws. As the jaws close, the area of contact increases and the pressure decreases. This is why you see lizards repeatedly chewing at food while throwing it back into the angle of the jaws each time - each 'new' bite allows high pressure to be exerted again. This is particularly effective for cutting or crushing. Monitors, on the other hand, have an entirely different biting mechanism. 

The jaws of a monitor operate like a double pivot pair of tongs or grabbers where the jaws remain parallel to each other as they close. This means that all the monitor?s teeth penetrate simultaneously (instead of back ones first). The teeth themselves are shark-like, with a pointed triangular shape for penetrating and very sharp serrated edges for slicing. Mother Nature invented the steak knife before humans did. Instead of ?chewing? when they feed, monitors bite down and hold on, while using their long, muscular necks to pull the head backwards, forcibly drawing their teeth through the flesh. They will often hold food items with their forelimbs to facilitate this. As a result of this technique, each tooth, in turn, is drawn across the same spot. With the passage of each successive tooth that spot is sliced a little deeper in exactly the same way the teeth on a handsaw cut into timber. It is the number of teeth and length of the saw stroke, rather than the pressure applied, that contributes most to the depth of the cut produced. The long straight jaw and associated teeth of monitors (like a saw blade), along with their long flexible necks, capable of pulling the head back along the entire length of the bite, make them very effective at slicing deeply. They are able to slice through tendons, ligaments and even bone to some degree. This explains why powerful individuals are able to produce very deep and damaging lacerations, which bleed profusely, with just one grab. 

You can see just how much muscle the Lacie possesses by the amount of bone surface there is for muscle attachment on the lower jaw and the neck vertebrae. The size of the jaw muscles is also indicated by the size of the bone curves at the side of the skull, just behind the eye socket, where the muscles operating the jaws pass through from the lower jaw to attach to the roof of the skull. The mandible itself is strongly built, indicative of the size of the forces it is designed to withstand when the jaw muscles are in operation (it is not a weight-bearing bone).

Here?s a pic from another thread that clearly illustrates the damage that Lace Monitors can do... https://aussiepythons.com/forum/showthread.php/170641-Wild-Monitor?p=2047445#post2047445

I hope you find the mechanics behind it as fascinating as I do. 
Blue

PS I assume the fracture is what can be seen right across the frontal bone?


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## Bushman (May 7, 2015)

imported_Varanus said:


> Not strictly speaking, definite brain injury, loss of sight and hearing, although he could see at least partially out of one eye. I would have euthed as release back into the wild was a no go, but I thought he still had some quality of life so he's now part on an educational display in QLD.


Yep, definitely not fit to be released then, despite being as tough as they are. It's good to hear that he was so well cared. 

Blue, that's an interesting description of the mechanics of their bite and anatomy. It makes you think.


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## Bluetongue1 (May 12, 2015)

@ Bushman, in the thread with the photo of the Lacie bite there is a link to a photo of a bite from a Storr?s monitor: http://www.pbase.com/gehyra/image/49479132, that I reckon really highlights the effectiveness of a monitor bite in slicing through flesh. This resulted from a lizard the same size as a Pygmy Mulga and half the size of an Ackie. It?s enough to give one nightmares about what a large Lacie could really do to you if it was in full feeding mode and had a clear shot... 

Blue


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## GBWhite (May 12, 2015)

The cranial mechanics of Lace Monitors is comparable to that of extinct theropod dinosaurs Tyrannosaurus and Allosaurus. Profuse bleeding is a result of the combination of serrated teeth and an anti-coagulant/hypotension inducing venom delivered at the time of the bite.

George


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## Pirateherpss (May 16, 2015)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSwjsAUxNhY

Thats why you don't mess with a lace monitor.. haha


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## Bluetongue1 (May 16, 2015)

GBWhite said:


> The cranial mechanics of Lace Monitors is comparable to that of extinct theropod dinosaurs Tyrannosaurus...


 The biomechanics of the jaws and bite of Tyrannosaurus are nothing like that of monitors. You only have to look at a picture of Tyrannosaurus skull to see how different they are. Tyrannosaurus have particularly heavy skull bones to withstand the immense forces generated by their biting mechanism. The jaws of monitors, by nature of their ?parallel closing?, are incapable of exerting such intense crushing pressure. Tyrannosaurus teeth are long and conical shaped, designed for piercing and crushing, and not at all like the flattened triangular slicing, blade-like teeth of monitors. It is believed that Tyrannosaurus violently shook its prey from side to side to tear off swallowable chunks from large animals. The biting mechanics of Tyrannosaurus are much more like that of crocodiles and very different to that of monitors.




GBWhite said:


> Profuse bleeding is a result of the combination of serrated teeth and an anti-coagulant/hypotension inducing venom delivered at the time of the bite.


This is a rather presumptuous generalisation. The little research in this area that has been published to date is very much in the preliminary stages. Venom has been identified and confirmed in about six species. Investigations of those venoms have been confined to chemical and molecular laboratory-based studies and not their ecological (functional) roles. Unfortunately speculation and misrepresentation of the known facts are rife.

The lack of a specialised injection system (i.e. no fangs) means that varanid venom would need to be produced in sufficient quantities to enter the wound in order to have a significant effect. The potential for production of significant quantities of venom has only been demonstrated in a couple of the species studied. The photograph of the Storr?s Monitor bite does not support the assertion made. One can clearly see in this photo that the blood has begun to clot. Clearly any anticoagulant was not a relevant contributing factor in the degree of bleeding experienced in this instance. 

Blue


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## GBWhite (May 16, 2015)

Need to do a little more Googling my friend.


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## -Peter (May 18, 2015)

GBWhite said:


> Need to do a little more Googling my friend.


He needs to have a chat with Bryan.


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