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Originally Posted by kindlekitten
are they poisonous?
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Possibly mildly venemous:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lace_monitor#Venom
Not something you'd want to get a bite from, even if not (due to possibility of infection). They tend to be fairly retiring though, I suspect unless cornered. They climb straight up the smoothest of trees (eg, the palms in our yard) without a slip, and their claws are hooked and long. As they go up, you might try walk around the tree to look at them, but they'll move around to the side opposite you. It can make them a bugger to photograph when they're up a tree.
There's a picture here by (the late) Jean-Paul Ferrero of a couple of dingoes on Fraser Island going a monitor:
http://www.arkive.org/dingo/canis-lu...ge-G16653.html
From memory, the picture in the book I have of his (
A Remarkable Eye) is from this same incident, but has one of the dingoes circling behind, but the other facing the on-hindlegs monitor reaching at him/her.
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