David Attenborough is in the Australian desert with a monitor lizard called a perentie. The perentie is the biggest monitor lizard in Australia, and can grow to up to two metres long. They’re also highly intelligent. Most lizards inflate their lungs with the same muscles they use to walk, so they can’t run and breathe effectively at the same time. But perenties can run continuously for very long periods, to chase down their prey, because they have big muscular throats that they use like bellows to pump air into their lungs when they are running. Able to run at over 20 miles an hour, they are one of the fastest of all reptiles and are even able to outrun a warm-blooded rabbit. Lizards are truly the dragons of the dry.
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