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Yes. Australia’s largest lizard, the perentie (Varanus giganteus), can make a short sprint on its hind legs as well as run on all four feet. A South Australian government fact sheet states that it can “sprint either on all fours or on its hind legs.” The animal’s brief upright dash creates a striking dinosaur-like silhouette, but the resemblance is visual: a perentie is a modern monitor lizard, not a dinosaur, and the best-known experiments on why lizards run bipedally were conducted on different animals.
What is the lizard in the headline?
The animal is the perentie, Varanus giganteus, a monitor lizard commonly called a goanna. Perth Zoo describes it as “Australia’s largest lizard.” It lives in the country’s arid interior, with records and institutional descriptions covering parts of South Australia, Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory.
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The Australian Reptile Park characterizes the species as large and robust. Its build matters to the way it moves: a substantial torso, powerful hind limbs, a long tail and long claws give it the appearance of an animal designed for forceful bursts rather than a light, continuously airborne run.
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Published Australian authorities use slightly different maximum-size wording, so it is better to preserve each figure’s qualification than to present a single supposedly exact record.
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| Source | Maximum size stated | What the wording means |
|---|---|---|
| Government of South Australia, Central Ranges bioregion fact sheet (circa 2014) | “Up to 2.5 metres long” | A maximum length given for the species in that fact sheet. |
| Parks Australia, Uluṟu-Kata Tjuṯa National Park profile (page date not shown; accessed 13 October 2026) | “Over 2.5 metres” and up to 20 kilograms | A national-park profile describing animals that can exceed 2.5 metres and reach the stated mass. |
Those numbers explain why a running perentie can look far more imposing than the smaller dragon lizards often seen in locomotion experiments. Size alone does not prove that it runs faster, however. The available sources establish the ability to sprint upright, not a measured top speed or a population-wide percentage of sprints performed on two legs.
Two different upright behaviors are often confused
Descriptions of perenties commonly mention both hind-leg running and standing upright. They are not the same action.
Bipedal sprinting
Sprinting is locomotion. During a rapid escape, the South Australian fact sheet says the perentie may travel on its hind legs instead of using all four limbs. The statement does not specify how long an individual remains upright, how frequently this happens, or a maximum speed. It does establish that a two-legged sprint is part of the species’ documented movement repertoire.
Tripoding for a better view
Tripoding is a stationary posture in which the lizard braces on its strong back legs and tail. Parks Australia explains: “They often stand on their strong back legs and tail to get a better view of the surrounding landscape.” In this position the tail acts as a third support point; the animal is looking around rather than covering ground.
A photograph of a perentie standing tall therefore does not, by itself, show bipedal running. Conversely, a motion sequence of an escaping animal may show a true hindlimb sprint even though the lizard later drops back onto all fours.
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Why does it look like a dinosaur?
The comparison comes from posture and silhouette. A large reptile rising over its hind limbs, holding its torso above the ground and extending a long tail behind it resembles popular images of a running theropod dinosaur. The visual analogy is useful for describing what a witness sees, but it has strict limits.
- The perentie is a living monitor lizard in the genus Varanus, not a dinosaur.
- “Dinosaur-like” describes appearance, not proof that the lizard uses the same mechanics as any particular dinosaur.
- The fact that both an animal in a museum reconstruction and a modern lizard can appear upright does not establish a direct behavioral inheritance.
- A perentie’s tail-supported standing posture and its running posture should not be treated as one continuous, dinosaur-style gait.
Modern reptiles and extinct dinosaurs also differed in anatomy, body proportions and evolutionary history. The evidence available for perenties supports a careful statement: this monitor can sprint bipedally, producing a dinosaur-like image for a short distance.
What direct evidence do we have for perentie locomotion?
The clearest statements about this species come from Australian institutions rather than from a laboratory gait experiment. Perth Zoo identifies the perentie as Australia’s largest lizard and notes that it runs away when threatened. Parks Australia describes very rapid escape running and the tail-and-hind-leg viewing posture. The South Australian government fact sheet directly reports both four-footed and hind-leg sprinting.
None of those profiles reports a measured sprint speed, a standard track test or a survey showing how often wild perenties choose two legs. Those missing measurements matter: an ability documented in a fact sheet should not be turned into a precise performance statistic.
What lizard-running experiments actually show
The frequently cited biomechanics research concerns Australian agamids, or dragon lizards, not perenties. Monitors and agamids are different groups, so the findings can suggest a general mechanism without being presented as a perentie result.
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The 2008 four-species study
Clemente, Withers, Thompson and Lloyd examined four Australian agamid species in “Why go bipedal? Locomotion and morphology in Australian agamid lizards,” published in the Journal of Experimental Biology in 2008 (volume 211, issue 13, pages 2058–2065; DOI 10.1242/jeb.018044).
Across those four dragon-lizard species, the proportion of strides made bipedally increased with body size and with how close the body’s centre of mass was to the hips. It decreased as running endurance increased. The two-legged strides were not faster than four-legged strides in any of the four species. Instead, acceleration was significantly higher in three of the four.
The authors therefore proposed that bipedal running may arise as a consequence of rapid acceleration, rather than because two legs provide a superior top speed or greater endurance. That is a result for the studied agamids. It is not an experiment demonstrating that a perentie becomes upright for the same mechanical reason.
The 2018 University of Queensland report
A University of Queensland report published on 26 September 2018 described slow-motion-camera work involving eight Australian agamid species. Researcher Nicholas Wu summarized the earlier understanding this way: “There was an existing understanding that the backwards shift in these lizards’ centre of mass, combined with quick bursts of acceleration, caused them to start running on two legs at a certain point.”
The later peer-reviewed work, “Body and tail-assisted pitch control facilitates bipedal locomotion in Australian agamid lizards,” examined how body posture and the tail help control pitch while those lizards run upright. Again, the subjects were agamids. The study helps explain a possible route to bipedal motion in some lizards generally; it does not supply a measured gait model for Varanus giganteus.
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How the evidence fits together
| Question | Evidence type | What can safely be concluded |
|---|---|---|
| Can the perentie sprint on two legs? | South Australian government fact sheet | Yes; the source explicitly says it can sprint on all fours or on its hind legs. |
| Does it stand upright without running? | Parks Australia species profile | Yes; it often braces on hind legs and tail to see the landscape. |
| How big can it get? | Government and park-institution profiles | Reported maxima range from up to 2.5 metres to over 2.5 metres; Parks Australia gives up to 20 kilograms. |
| Why might a lizard become bipedal during acceleration? | 2008 and later studies of agamids | In the tested dragon lizards, posture, centre-of-mass position and acceleration were associated with bipedal strides. |
| How fast does a perentie run, and how often does it use two legs? | No direct measurement identified in the cited material | No defensible speed or frequency figure should be assigned. |
What a fleeing perentie’s movement may look like
Institutional descriptions support a sequence with two options: the animal can escape on all fours, or it can sprint on its hind legs. A viewer may see the front of the body lift as the lizard accelerates, followed by a brief upright run and a return to quadrupedal movement. That visual sequence is an interpretation of the reported behaviors, not a published frame-by-frame analysis of perenties.
The tail remains important in either case. In a stationary tripod it is an obvious support. During running, a long tail changes the animal’s balance and posture, but the cited perentie profiles do not measure its exact mechanical role. The agamid experiments show that tail-assisted pitch control can matter in bipedal locomotion for the species they studied; they should not be used to assign a specific force or angle to a perentie.
Where perenties live and how they respond to danger
Perenties are associated with arid regions of South Australia, Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory. Their long claws are described as useful for climbing, and their powerful legs allow rapid retreat. Perth Zoo says the lizard runs away if threatened, while Parks Australia emphasizes that it can run away extremely fast.
For anyone lucky enough to see one, the most informative observation is usually a distant one. A lizard that rises on its hind legs may simply be scanning its surroundings; a sudden departure may involve either four-legged or hind-leg sprinting. Keeping clear space avoids turning a natural behavior into a stress response and makes it easier to distinguish a stationary tripod from a running sequence.
Common mistakes in explaining the story
Calling the perentie a dinosaur
It is a monitor lizard. “Like a dinosaur” is a visual comparison, not a taxonomic label.
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Using the agamid studies as if they tested perenties
The 2008 experiment used four agamid species, and the 2018 work described eight agamid species. Neither was a perentie study.
Confusing standing with running
Tripoding uses the tail and hind legs to raise the body while stationary. Bipedal sprinting is movement. A source that documents one does not automatically document the other.
Turning maximum length into a precise record
One government source says “up to 2.5 metres,” while Parks Australia says “over 2.5 metres” and gives a mass of up to 20 kilograms. Quote the source and wording rather than manufacturing a single exact maximum.
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The cited material says the animal can run extremely fast but does not provide a measured kilometre-per-hour value. No reliable speed should be inserted in its place.
The accurate answer in one sentence
Australia’s perentie, Varanus giganteus, is a very large monitor lizard documented by Australian authorities as capable of sprinting on its hind legs or all fours; its dinosaur-like appearance is real as a visual impression, while the detailed biomechanics studied in laboratories come from smaller agamid lizards rather than from perenties themselves.
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