Most everyone knows that Komodo Dragons are the largest lizards on the planet. Surprisingly, humans have only known about these lizards for about 100 years. But thats nothing compared to the newest discovery of a very very small relative of the Komodo dragon. (original article)

These lizards, about the length of a human hand and very skinny, are about as small as the Komodo’s are big. They are even smaller than the pygmy goanna (the short-tailed monitor, V. brevicauda), which, until now, was believed to be the smallest relative of the Komodo Dragon. These new tiny dragons are shorter, thinner, and more boldly colored than the pygmy goanna. It is believed that around the same time chimpanzees and humans begun to separately evolve (between six million and seven million years ago) the pygmy and the newest lizard edition began to evolve separately. Gillenibaumann_01

These little lizards were discovered in Australia, the home of their slightly pygmy goanna larger relatives. Some females can now be seen in the Western Australian Museum in Welshpool. These lizards have yet to be named, but have been nicknamed “Pokey”.

It’s the little discoveries like these that make us realize how much more we still have to learn and discover about our planet. The planet is so vast that in our relatively short period of time here, there is no way we have a full understanding of the creatures we share the earth with!