Largest lizard ever

The largest lizard of any type currently known to have existed is Hainosaurus bernardi, a prehistoric marine lizard known as a mosasaur. It lived during the late Cretaceous Period, 70.6–66 million years ago, and its first-documented fossil remains were found in Belgium. It is believed by most researchers to have attained a total length of up to 15 m, although one researcher has downgraded this estimate to 12.2 m. Also worth noting is that a related species, Mosasaurus hoffmannii, has recently been estimated by some workers to attain a total length of up to 18 m. No lizards other than mosasaurs are known to have attained a length exceeding 8 m, however, so whichever of the above two species was the longer, the record of largest lizard ever is held by a mosasaur. Mosasaurs were adapted for an exclusively aquatic, marine lifestyle, but were closely related to the terrestrial monitor lizards or varanids still in existence today. The first mosasaur specimen made known to science, a fragmentary fossil skull, was discovered in 1764 in a Dutch quarry, and was initially thought to be from a whale.