In this case not the mythical beasts found decorating ancient maps and charts but rather real living breathing ones, albeit somewhat smaller. This guy is a Lace Monitor, Varanus varius:

 

 

There are over 50 species in the family (27 of which come from Australia) including the world’s largest living lizard, the venomous Komodo Dragon (V. komodoensis) which reaches well over 3m in length. In Australia monitors are colloquially known as goannas and some, like the lace monitor, remain quite common. Lace monitors are big, reaching over 2m as adults and can become pests of campgrounds and hen coops (they feed naturally on eggs). Here is the same animal getting a spot of shut-eye in the morning sun (you can see the scale patterning that gives it its name):

 

 

These animals have an absolutely amazing breeding system. The female breaks into a termite mound and lays about 30 parchment-shelled eggs inside the termite nest. The termites rapidly repair the damage, sealing the lizard eggs unharmed inside their nest and creating for them a humidicrib – a climate controlled warm moist environment. Almost as amazing, the young lizards are unable to break out of the termite mound themselves so the female goanna has to return to the termite mound at exactly the right time and break it open again to let her babies out. Incredible but true.

 

The only thing about goannas more surprising than this is that the Komodo Dragon has been shown to occasionally reproduce parthenogentically – ie. without mating. Other lizard species are known to do this (there is one in the USA which has no males at all) but the Dragon is by far the largest animal known to reproduce without sex.