''Gallotia goliath'' (the Tenerife giant lizard or goliath Tenerife lizard) is an extinct giant lizard species from the island of

Tenerife Tenerife (; ; formerly spelled ''Teneriffe'') is the largest and most populous island of the Canary Islands. It is home to 43% of the total population of the archipelago. With a land area of and a population of 978,100 inhabitants as of Janu ...

of the Canary Islands,

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

. This reptile lived before the arrival of humans and is believed to have grown to at least long. It was described by the German

herpetologist Herpetology (from Greek ἑρπετόν ''herpetón'', meaning "reptile" or "creeping animal") is the branch of zoology concerned with the study of amphibians (including frogs, toads, salamanders, newts, and caecilians ( gymnophiona)) and rep ...

Robert Mertens.

Fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

s of this lizard have been found in volcanic caves, where they often appear with those of other animals, like the Tenerife giant rat.

Classification

Prehistoric ''Gallotia'' remains have been assigned to the

taxa In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; plural taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular nam ...

''G. maxima'' and ''G. goliath'', the former supposedly occurring only on Tenerife, the latter on several islands. It was eventually determined, however, that ''G. maxima'' is a junior synonym of ''G. goliath'', and that the latter was close to the

El Hierro giant lizard The El Hierro giant lizard (''Gallotia simonyi machadoi'') is a subspecies of lacertid (wall lizard) that can be found on the island of El Hierro, one of the Canary Islands. It is considered to be a subspecies of ''Gallotia simonyi'', Simony ...

(''Gallotia simonyi''); supposed ''goliath'' specimens from

El Hierro El Hierro, nicknamed ''Isla del Meridiano'' (the "Meridian Island"), is the second-smallest and farthest-south and -west of the Canary Islands (an autonomous community of Spain), in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa, with a populatio ...

La Gomera La Gomera () is one of Spain's Canary Islands, located in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa. With an area of , it is the third smallest of the eight main islands of this archipelago. It belongs to the province of Santa Cruz de Tene ...

, and

La Palma La Palma (, ), also known as ''La isla bonita'' () and officially San Miguel de La Palma, is the most north-westerly island of the Canary Islands, Spain. La Palma has an area of making it the fifth largest of the eight main Canary Islands. The ...

(from the Cuevas de los Murciélagos) are probably just extremely large individuals of, respectively, the El Hierro,

(''Gallotia bravoana'') and

(''Gallotia auaritae'') giant lizards. Based on DNA sequence analysis of mummified remains, ''G. goliath'' is a valid species that probably was restricted to Tenerife, and apparently was closer to the Tenerife speckled lizard (''Gallotia intermedia'') than to the El Hierro giant lizard.

Characteristics

''G. goliath'' was the largest reptile in the Canary Islands, reaching a length of but based on the finding of a skull in 1952, there could have been even larger specimens. These giant lizards inhabited the coastal lowlands of the island.

Extinction

It inhabited Tenerife from the late

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed in ...

through the

Holocene The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene togeth ...

until the fifteenth century of our era. Bone remains of this species have been found in different archaeological sites with marks that show that they were consumed by the aborigines of the island (

Guanches The Guanches were the indigenous inhabitants of the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean some west of Africa. It is believed that they may have arrived on the archipelago some time in the first millennium BCE. The Guanches were the only nativ ...

). There is written documentation about its existence in the fifteenth century, so its extinction must have occurred in the years after the conquest of the Canaries by the

Castilians Castilians (Spanish: ''castellanos'') are those people who live in certain former areas of the historical Kingdom of Castile, but the region's exact limits are disputed. A broader definition is to consider as Castilians the population belonging ...

Gallery

File:Gallotia goliath mummy 2.JPG, Mummified specimen in Museo de la Naturaleza y el Hombre. File:Gallotia goliath restoration.JPG, Model in Museo de la Naturaleza y el Hombre. File:Tenerife giant lizard restoration.jpg, Life restoration, based on known remains and extant ''Gallotia'' lizards. A

canary Canary originally referred to the island of Gran Canaria on the west coast of Africa, and the group of surrounding islands (the Canary Islands). It may also refer to: Animals Birds * Canaries, birds in the genera ''Serinus'' and ''Crithagra'' i ...

(''Serinus canaria'') is shown for size reference

Notes

References