Goanna

A goanna is any of several Australian monitor lizards of the genus Varanus, as well as certain species from Southeast Asia.

Around 30 species of goanna are known, 25 of which are found in Australia. This varied group of carnivorous reptiles ranges greatly in size and fills several ecological niches.

The goanna features prominently in Aboriginal mythology and Australian folklore.

Being predatory lizards, goannas are often quite large, or at least bulky, with sharp teeth and claws. The largest is the perentie (V. giganteus), which can grow over 2.5 m (8.2 ft) in length.

Not all goannas are gargantuan. Pygmy goannas may be smaller than a man's arm. The smallest of these, the short-tailed monitor (Varanus brevicuda) reaches only 20 cm in length. They survive on smaller prey, such as insects and mice.

Goannas combine predatory and scavenging behaviours. A goanna will prey on any animal it can catch and is small enough to eat whole. Goannas have been blamed for the death of sheep by farmers, though most likely erroneously, as goannas are also eaters of carrion and are attracted to rotting meat.

Goanna (band)

Goanna is an Australian folk rock group which formed in 1977 in Geelong as The Goanna Band with mainstay Shane Howard as singer-songwriter and guitarist. The group integrated social protest with popular music and reached the Top 20 on the Australian Kent Music Report Singles Chart with "Solid Rock" (1982) and "Let the Franklin Flow" (released under the name Gordon Franklin & the Wilderness Ensemble in 1983). Their debut album, Spirit of Place peaked at No. 2 on the related albums chart. They disbanded in 1987 and briefly reformed in 1998.

Biography

The Goanna Band was formed as an Australian folk rock group by singer-songwriter and guitarist Shane Howard in Geelong, in 1977. Alongside Howard, the original line-up was Mike Biscan (guitar), Richard Griffiths (bass guitar) and Rod Hoe (drums). During their early years the line-up changed numerous times, with only Howard as the mainstay. In 1979, the group consisted of Howard, keyboardist & vocalist Rose Bygrave, lead guitarist & vocalist Warwick Harwood, bass guitarist Carl Smith, drummer Gary Crothall and vocalist & harmonica player Ian Morrison. They recorded the independent 12" EP, Livin' on the Razor's Edge as The Goanna Band. The four track EP was produced by Broderick Smith, ex-The Dingoes, and released on the EMI subsidiary label Custom Press. By 1981 the band was now Shane Howard, Rose Bygrave, Warrick Harwood, Peter 'Brolga' Coughlan on bass guitar, Marcia Howard vocalist & synth player, Graham Davidge electric guitar and Robbie Ross on drums.They had shortened the name to Goanna and with their increasing popularity they attracted the interest of major record companies.

Goanna (software)

Goanna is a web browser engine used in applications developed by Moonchild Productions (notably the Pale Moon web browser and their FossaMail e-mail client). Goanna is free and open-source software subject to the terms of the Mozilla Public License version 2.

Goanna is a fork of the Netscape/Mozilla-sourced Gecko engine, and shares many of its features.

It is designed to support open Internet standards, and is used by different applications to display web pages and, in some cases, an application's user interface itself (by rendering XUL). Like Gecko, Goanna offers a rich programming API that makes it suitable for a wide variety of roles in Internet-enabled applications, such as web browsers, content presentation, and client/server applications.

Goanna is written primarily in C++ and is cross-platform, and runs on various operating systems including Linux, OS X and Microsoft Windows. Its development is overseen by the Pale Moon community and the small development team responsible for its main application (Pale Moon).