Modern Day Dragon

Komodo National Park is listed as a World Heritage for a good reason. It's the home of the largest living lizard on this planet, of which an adult can reach 3 meters in length and 166 kg in weight. Let's get a closer look at this modern-day dragon.

Komodo dragons are diurnal -they prefer to hunt in the daytime. A komodo uses its long, yellow forked tongue to sample the air. It moves with swinging head from left to right, "sensing" the existence and direction of dead animals from as far away as four to eleven km away, when the wind is right.

Komodo dragons are also called ora or the land dragon by locals. Their existence was unknown to the western world until 1912. The arrival of komodos in the 1920s inspired Hollywood to produce King Kong.

There is a population of about 3,000 to 5,000 Komodo dragons on the islands of Komodo, Gila Motang, Rinca, and Flores. However, poaching, human encroachment, and natural disasters have driven the species to endangered status.

Komodo dragons can stand with their weight supported on their tails. A dragon may grow as many as 200 new teeth each year and it has a bad breath. Young dragons roll in the large dragon's faces to avoid being eaten by the large dragons.

The Komodo dragon's bite is venomous. The toxins in its saliva (containing 50 different bacterial strains, at least seven of which are highly septic) cause the prey animal to go into shock and prevent its blood from clotting. The bitten animal dies in as little as eight hours. However, a komodo bite is not deadly to another komodo.

Vote for Komodo Island
as One of the New 7 Wonders of Nature
at www.new7wonders.com





May this worldwide contest make our national park better-managed and better protected.