Snake catcher vs 'Mr Chunky' – the epic battle between man and goanna
Snake catcher Stu McKenzie was called to a Sunshine Coast school where he came face-to-face with one huge goanna.
A snake catcher's battle with getting "a modern day dinosaur" into a tub has been one of the funnier rescues to watch.
The goanna, also known as a monitor outside of Australia, was found wandering around a school in Queensland on Tuesday afternoon.
The "naughty" reptile had been "harassing students at the lunch area for food," which is when Sunshine Coast Snake Catchers came to the rescue.
"Oh my goodness, you are Mr Chunky," Stuart McKenzie remarked in the video, which has amassed more than 350,000 views.
"Look at the size of this thing," another rescuer Dan laughs as Stuart wrestles with the goanna. After managing to grab it, he holds it up in the air and cheekily tries to compare his hand to how wide the large reptile is. Only the offended animal is having none of it and digs its sharp claws into his hand in protest.
"Okay that was a bad idea, Stuart," he says to himself. The next step is to get the goanna into a container to relocate him, however that's not exactly a seamless process either. "Suck your gut in big fella," he jokingly says.
Unique modern-day dinosaurs
Although somewhat reminiscent of dinosaurs, the carnivores are a group of lizards, having evolved in the northern hemisphere of the world 90 million years ago, then moving south to Australia and Africa about 15 million years ago, according to the Australian Museum.
The Australian goannas have also uniquely evolved in a way where their body shape has minimally changed over time, due to a lack of competition in the wild.
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However their actual size ranges widely, from the Australian short-tailed Pygmy Monitor being 25cm to a three-metre Komodo Dragon in Indonesia, which is the largest living lizard.
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