- All right, guys, I'm climbing.
(dramatic music)
- [Man] Careful.
- Whoa, whoa, whoa, boy, he's coming right at me, hold on.
Oh, this is a bad situation to be in.
(growling)
(snarling)
As you travel across the rugged landscape
of the Australian Outback, it's pretty obvious
that this environment is the perfect place for reptiles.
Today is our last adventure into 350 square mile wilderness
that exists just outside of Meandarra.
During the several days we have spent here,
working under the special permits of Lockie Gilding
and Max Jackson from Australian Wildlife Encounters,
we managed to accomplish several successes
including the safe capture, presentation,
and release, a species such as the bearded dragon,
the blue-tongue skink, and the sand monitor.
Yet it wasn't until this last day of exploration
that we came across one of the Outback's
most elusive lizards, the lace monitor.
Okay, he's starting to move, starting to move.
Okay, he hunkered down in the grass.
We're gonna make a go for this.
- [Mario] No, into the burrow.
- Another good attempt at it there.
We got some good B-roll shots of it,
but wow, they are fast and they always stay close
to their burrows, which is oftentimes why they can be
so difficult to catch.
Yeah, check this out.
Right down in there, that would be a monitor burrow.
All right, guys, yeah, let's keep at it.
That was a really great look, almost the golden opportunity.
Okay, we got another monitor here, it's a lace monitor.
It was going just toward this tree.
It is going up the tree.
On the back side of the tree, this might be catchable.
It is going straight up the tree.
I'm gonna go after it.
All right, guys, I'm climbing.
(dramatic music)
- [Man] Careful, the tree's half dead.
- [Coyote] Oh, it is hissing at me.
This is gonna be a wicked grab.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Boy, he's coming right at me, hold on.
Oh, this is a bad situation to be in,
literally nothing between me and the lizard,
but I've got a hold on its tail.
It's facing right toward me.
Oh, this is bad, I can't get a good angle on him.
Got him. - Nice.
- Woo, ow, I'm getting clawed up.
Oh, boy, that's really high up to have caught a monitor.
Aha, now the challenge is gonna be getting back down.
I've got my hands full.
This is the lace monitor.
Ah, ah, I'm getting ripped to shreds here.
Okay, I'm gonna try to slowly maneuver myself down.
(grunts) Okay.
That's a long drop from there isn't it?
I'm not jumping that one.
Now I'm running out of branches, hold on.
Woo, that is a good looking lizard right there.
It's actually missing the tip of its tail.
(gasping)
Woo.
The acrobatics necessary to catch monitor lizards
had been one of the greatest challenges so far
of my career.
And what you are looking at right there is the lace monitor.
I have it and it has me.
What a beautiful reptile,
and I really had to work for that one.
I'm gonna have some scars for that one.
Blood on the thumb, blood on the hand,
blood on the arm, claws going into my tricep.
But there it is, one of the most pristine reptile species
here in Australia, the lace monitor.
Now when we caught the sand monitor,
we were extremely excited.
That was also a very difficult catch.
Look at that, it is absolutely locked onto me.
And you may be noticing that they're about similar size
but actually the lace monitor can grow quite a bit bigger.
I would consider this just a juvenile.
They can reach lengths of up to six feet.
And like the sand monitor, this is a voracious predator
looking for anything it can get its jaws on.
Whether it's alive or dead, it is fair game.
Now one thing that's really interesting
about the lace monitor is it's more arboreal
than any of the other monitor species out here.
Its first line of retreat was to head up into the tree
which actually is an advantage for me
because it isolates the reptile.
If it goes down into a burrow,
there's no chance of catching it.
Now while it's not an easy catch, it is easier
than chasing it across the grasslands
and hoping that it eventually turns around
and gives me a defensive display.
Now they do have epic long beautiful tails.
But you'll actually see this one is missing
the tip of its tail.
That could have happened from a predator grabbing onto it.
It could have also happened in a battle
with another larger monitor.
But even without the tip of its tail,
this lizard is incredible.
Now you'll notice a very distinct yellowish banding
on the underside of the chin there.
Here let me just tip it up a bit more
so you can zoom in and get that shot.
And while the body structure is similar to the sand monitor,
the color difference is quite noticeable,
all of that golden speckling that runs along the legs
and on the lower jaw.
And I'll tell you what, the claws are no less sharp
than the sand monitor or any reptile
I have ever worked with.
They're about as sharp as the talons of an eagle.
And as soon as I had the monitor isolated up there
in the tree, it immediately went into a defensive maneuver
where it said, okay, I can't climb any further,
so what I'm gonna do is hiss and try to bite you.
And as soon as I grabbed ahold of its back side,
I had control in a sense, but still if I'd let go,
it would have lunged forward and latched onto me.
And let me tell you, you don't want to be bitten
by a monitor that high up in the tree.
Now the bite from this reptile is very painful.
They have razor sharp teeth and there's a lot of bacteria
in their saliva, and oftentimes monitor bites
result in an infection.
There's a lot of debate out there
in the scientific community as to whether or not
these reptiles are actually venomous.
We know the Komodo dragons when they bite their prey
that victim eventually falls to the toxicity of the saliva.
I'm not sure how that necessarily works
with the lace monitor, but I can tell you this much,
I do not want to be bitten
by this creature, so incredible.
And actually, Mario, could you help me for just a second.
I want to show you guys the strength and musculature
of its body but is latched onto my arm.
And one cool thing about the lace monitor is
that they become larger and stockier than many
of the other monitor species, ow, ow, ow,
here in Australia.
And it is just, ow, that's like a fish hook
in the back side of my arm.
- [Mario] Over here?
- Yeah, yeah, you got it, okay.
I gotta get it off, off, almost, almost, almost.
- Here, grab him, grab right there.
- There we go, okay, now I've got a better hold.
Whoa, for the entire first part of this scene
I had a fish hook of a claw in the underside of my arm.
All monitor species are incredibly intelligent,
in fact, almost problem solving intelligent,
and the lace monitor specifically tops the charts.
The females will actually lay their eggs in termite mounds
and use the heat that's generated in there
to incubate the eggs.
The termites then come and rebuild their nest,
and it's a very solid structure.
The babies wouldn't be able to get back out,
so what the female does is remembers
where she laid those eggs.
She goes and digs them up as they're beginning to hatch
and then the babies are released out into the wild.
Whoever thought that a reptile could be such a good mother?
I cannot tell at this age whether or not we are looking
at a male or a female.
It's rather tough to distinguish when they're juveniles.
But I'll tell you this much, it is one impressive reptile
and certainly a creature that we absolutely respect.
Well, how cool is that?
The lace monitor is officially
our second monitor catch of the trip.
I'll tell you this much, the catch was no less challenging
than the first one.
I'm Coyote Peterson.
Be brave, stay wild.
We'll see you on the next adventure.
Man, that was an awesome one.
Chasing a lace monitor up to the highest heights
of a tree made for an incredibly daring and dangerous catch.
Yet nothing excites me more than the moments I got
to spend in the presence of this beautiful reptile.
The Australian Outback provided the brave wilderness team
and I with some of the greatest adventures of our careers,
and I speak for us all when I say that we cannot wait
to one day return.
If you thought climbing a tree to catch a lace monitor
was heart racing, make sure to go back and watch
the episode where I manage to get the sand monitor
up close for the cameras.
And don't forget, subscribe so you can join me
and the crew on this season of Breaking Trail.
- [Man] That might be you most epic catch of all time.
(growling and howling) (birds chirping)