Spencer's goanna find, including highly venomous snakes, small mammals, small lizards, eggs, and carrion (dead animals), and is able to digest anything it eats. When threatened, "V. spenceri" hisses loudly, distends its throat and whips its aggressor with its muscular tail. "Varanus spenceri" lives in black soil plains with no trees; so Spencer's goanna is the only Australian monitor that does not readily climb although juvenile animals will climb given the opportunity. Clutch size of Spencer's monitor generally ranges between 11 and 30 eggs. "Varanus ingrami" , is an invalid name (a junior synonym) for this species. Spencer's goanna Spencer's goanna or
Goanna koalas) as a tourist scarer, probably more convincing due to the reptiles' carnivorous nature and fearsome appearance. A common tale was that the bite of a goanna was infused with a powerful, incurable venom. Every year after the bite (or every seven years), the wound would flare up again. For many years, herpetologists generally believed goannas were nonvenomous, and lingering illness from their bites was due solely to infection and septicaemia as a result of their saliva being rife with bacteria from carrion and other food sources. However, in 2005, researchers at the University of Melbourne announced that oral venom