Dragon slayer: how a prehistoric Australian goanna seduced the mighty Komodo

An ancestor of the sand monitor interbred with the world's largest lizard, research reveals

The world's largest living lizard - the Komodo dragon - reproduced with a species of lizard only found in Australia, a new study into its unusual breeding habits reveals.

While fossil findings have previously shown the three-metre-long Komodo dragon, now only found on a handful of Indonesian islands, originated in Australia, researchers from the Australian National University have established a genetic link.