Most people would find the discovery of a giant lizard clinging to the side of their house a bit of a surprise -- to say the least.
But Thurgoona resident Eric Holland must not have been too shocked when he spotted the lizard -- as he kept cool enough to snap a shot of it waiting for a mate on his wall.
“I was just doing a repair job in my shed when I opened the door and I saw this huge thing run across the ground and out of sight,” Mr Holland told The Border Mail.
He later found the reptile, estimated to be 1.5 metres long, clinging to a wall.
“When I went outside I saw him on the side of the house with his tail hitting the drain pipe,” Mr Holland said.
“I sometimes get blue tongues and lizards in the backyard but never anything quite like this,” he told The Border Mail.
He’s lucky the goanna was just having a bask in the sun -- the lizards are swift movers that hiss at their assailant when threatened, have sharp teeth and claws, can mistake humans for trees and attempt to climb them, and may even be venomous.
It’s another entry into the long list of terrifying Australian fauna putting on a display, including two crocodiles tearing each other apart and a three-metre long carpet python found in a toilet -- and those two in the past year alone.
With stories like these, it's no wonder visitors to the sunburnt country experience a persistent feeling of low-level panic whenever they step outside.