A huge monitor lizard from Komodo Island. Dragons of Komodo Island - how hunting strategy helps you win a fight to the death
Komodo dragons are the largest lizards in the world. These are unique animals: they are excellent swimmers, they can climb trees, they have an excellent sense of smell and, to top off the list, they are very poisonous. The bite of a monitor lizard can be fatal to humans.
The monitor lizard has many names - Komodo monitor lizard, Komodo dragon, and local residents call him ora or buaya darat (« land crocodile»).
These giants live only on a few islands located in the group of the Lesser Sunda Islands - about. Komodo, o. Rinka, o. Gili Motang and Fr. Flores.
Adult males reach 2.5 - 3 meters and weigh 70 kilograms. Although there is evidence that the largest specimen reached a length of 3.13 meters and weighed 166 kilograms. Females are smaller and reach a length of only 1.5 - 2 meters. The length of the monitor lizard's tail is approximately half the length of the body. The color is dark brown; young individuals have bright yellowish spots on their backs. The mouth is equipped with teeth with cutting edges, which are suitable for tearing meat into pieces.
Monitor lizards are diurnal animals. During the hottest time of the day they hide in the shade, and in the afternoon they go out hunting. At night they sleep soundly in their shelters. Young monitor lizards are excellent climbers and live in hollows for their own safety.
Komodo dragons - excellent swimmers. They can safely swim across small rivers, bays, or cover the distance to neighboring nearby islands. True, there is one “but” here. They cannot survive in water for more than 15 minutes. And if they don’t manage to get to land, they drown. Perhaps it was this factor that influenced the natural boundaries of the habitat of these animals.
Monitor lizards run fast; over short distances, their speed can reach 20 km/h. When necessary, they can stand on their hind legs, using their powerful tail as support.
They dont have natural enemies. They themselves will destroy anyone. But birds of prey happily feed on young monitor lizards and large snakes.
Komodo dragons are omnivores. They eat everyone from large insects and ending with horses, buffalos and other monitor lizards. Yes, yes, intraspecific cannibalism is common among these lizards. This is especially true during famine years. Adults often eat smaller relatives.
They wait in ambush for their prey. Sometimes they knock her down with a blow from her huge tail, breaking her legs. Large specimens prefer carrion, which they provide for themselves. The thing is that they cause a lacerated wound to the animal, which becomes infected. Inflammation of the wound and blood poisoning occurs. After some time the animal dies. The monitor lizard, thanks to its forked tongue, which is an organ of smell, finds the corpse of a victim even at a distance of several kilometers. Other monitor lizards also come running to the smell of carrion. A fight begins, the purpose of which is to establish dominance among the males.
The monitor lizard can swallow small prey whole, but tear large prey into pieces. Females and young animals mainly feed on what is left from dinner or on birds and small animals.
The breeding season for monitor lizards begins in winter, during the dry season. The number of males is 2 times greater than the number of females. Therefore, ritual battles for females take place at this time.
After mating, after 6-7 months, the female goes in search of places to lay eggs. Most often they become nests of weed chickens, large compost heaps or high piles of fallen leaves. She digs a deep hole there and lays 20 eggs, each weighing 200 grams. The female guards her nest for 8-8.5 months until the small monitor lizards hatch. Immediately after their appearance, their self-preservation instinct kicks in and before they are eaten, they climb the neighboring trees. They live there for the first 2 years.
Many have heard that a lizard bite can be fatal. It turns out that their saliva contains 57 different strains of bacteria that cause inflammation of the wound and blood poisoning. It is believed that these bacteria came from eating carrion. This is true, but here lies another secret.
More recently, in 2009, scientists at the University of Melbourne proved that monitor lizards have poisonous glands that are located on the lower jaw. They secrete a poison containing various toxic proteins that stop blood clotting, reduce blood pressure, muscle paralysis and loss of consciousness. The ducts of these glands are located at the base of the teeth, and the poison is mixed with saliva, which contains many bacteria.
Monitor lizards are dangerous for humans, this applies to a greater extent to him poisonous bites. If you don't apply for it in time medical care, That fatal outcome can't be avoided. They pose a particular danger to children. During famine years, there are recorded cases of children dying from these monsters. There are known cases of monitor lizards digging up corpses from graves.
It is forbidden to kill these animals. They are listed in the IUCN Red List. A national park was organized especially for them on Komodo Island.
Komodo dragon (giant Indonesian monitor, Komodo dragon) ( Varanus komodoensis) is the largest in the world. Predatory reptile belongs to the order Squamate, the superfamily of monitor lizards, the family of monitor lizards, the genus of monitor lizards. The Komodo dragon, also called the “dragon of Komodo Island,” got its name from one of its habitats.
Seasoned and strong monitor lizards can easily cope with more impressive prey: wild boars, buffalos, and goats. Often, the teeth of adult Komodo dragons fall into the teeth of livestock, those who came to water bodies to drink, or those who accidentally met on the path of this dangerous lizard.
The Komodo monitor lizard is also dangerous for humans; there are known cases of these predators attacking people. If there is not enough food, large monitor lizards can attack smaller relatives. When eating food, the Komodo dragon can swallow very large pieces due to the movable joint of the lower jaw bones and a capacious stomach, which tends to stretch.
Komodo dragon hunting
The hunting principle of the Komodo dragon is quite cruel. Sometimes a large predatory lizard attacks its prey from ambush, suddenly knocking down its “future dinner” with a powerful and sharp blow of its tail. Moreover, the force of the impact is so great that potential prey often suffers broken legs. 12 out of 17 deer die on the spot when fighting with a lizard. However, sometimes the victim manages to escape, although she may suffer severe injuries in the form of torn tendons or lacerations in the abdomen or neck, which leads to inevitable death. The venom of the monitor lizard and the bacteria contained in the reptile's saliva weaken the victim. In large prey, such as buffalo, death can occur only 3 weeks after a fight with a monitor lizard. Some sources indicate that the giant Komodo dragon will chase its prey by smell and traces of blood until it is completely exhausted. Some animals manage to escape and heal their wounds, other animals fall into the clutches of predators, and others die from wounds inflicted by the monitor lizard. An excellent sense of smell allows the Komodo dragon to smell food and the smell of blood at a distance of up to 9.5 km. And when the victim does die, monitor lizards come running to the smell of carrion to eat the dead animal.
Komodo dragon venom
Previously, it was believed that the saliva of the Komodo dragon contains only a harmful “cocktail” of pathogenic bacteria, to which the predatory lizard is immune. However, relatively recently, scientists have determined that the monitor lizard has a pair of poisonous glands located on the lower jaw and which produce special toxic proteins that cause decreased blood clotting, hypothermia, paralysis, low blood pressure and loss of consciousness in the bitten victim. The glands have a primitive structure: they do not have canals in the teeth, like, for example, in snakes, but open at the base of the teeth with ducts. Thus, the bite of the Komodo dragon is poisonous.
Dragon from Komodo Island (lat. Varanus komodoensis), also known as the Komodo monitor lizard, also known as the giant Indonesian monitor lizard, is a lizard with the most impressive dimensions in the world.
flickr/Antoni Sesen
The average weight of the giant is 90 kg, and the body length is, accordingly, 2.5 m, while the tail occupies almost half of the body. And the length of the most powerful specimen, the parameters of which were officially recorded, exceeded 3 meters and weighed 160 kg.
The appearance of the Komodo dragon is most interesting - either a lizard, or a dragon, or a dinosaur. And the island aborigines believe that this creature is most similar to an alligator, and therefore they call it buaya darat, which translated from the local dialect means land crocodile. And although the Komodo dragon has only one head and does not spew out flames from its nostrils, there is undoubtedly something aggressive in the appearance of this reptile.
This impression is reinforced by the color of the monitor lizard - dark brown, with yellowish splashes, and (especially!) appearance teeth - compressed from the sides, with cutting, jagged edges. A quick glance at this perfect arsenal, which is a “dragon” jaw, is enough to understand: the Komodo dragon is not to be trifled with. With more than 60 teeth and a jaw structure reminiscent of a shark's mouth, isn't this the perfect killing machine?
What makes up the diet of a giant reptile? No, no, monitor lizards have only external similarities with vegetarian dinosaurs: the gastronomic preferences of the Komodo dragon are strikingly different from the food preferences ancient ancestor. The lizard's tastes are distinguished by an enviable variety: it does not disdain carrion and readily absorbs any living creature - from insects and birds to horses, buffalo, deer and even its own brothers. Maybe it is for this reason that newborn lizards, having barely hatched, immediately leave their mother, hiding from her in the dense crown of trees?
Indeed, cannibalism is a quite common phenomenon among Komodo dragons: the lunch menu of adult monitor lizards often includes younger, smaller relatives. A hungry monitor lizard can also pose a threat to humans, and there are often cases when the prey matches the attacker in its weight category. How do lizards manage to defeat their prey? Large prey Monitor lizards stalk from ambush, and at the moment of attack they either knock down the victim with a powerful blow of the tail, breaking its legs, or bite their teeth into the flesh of a wild boar or deer, inflicting a deadly laceration.
The chances of survival of a wounded animal are scanty, since during a bite dangerous bacteria from the lizard’s mouth, as well as poison from the venom glands of the reptile’s lower jaw, enter its body. The inflammation develops at an accelerated pace, and the Komodo dragon can only wait for the victim to completely lose his strength and be unable to resist. He stubbornly follows the wounded prey, without letting it out of sight. Sometimes such tracking lasts up to three weeks - after that time, a buffalo bitten by a monitor lizard dies.
In the photo there is me, the dragon and a slightly excited Lera :)
Those who want to see these handsome guys in natural environment habitat would have to go to the Indonesian islands, since Komodo dragons live there. However, daredevils who are planning such a trip should be as careful as possible: monitor lizards have a keen sense of smell, and even a tiny drop of blood from a minor scratch on the body can attract a lizard located at a distance of 5 km with its smell. There have been cases of attacks on tourists, so rangers accompanying tourist groups are usually armed with long, strong poles. Just in case.
The largest monitor lizard on Earth lives on the Indonesian island of Komodo. The locals nicknamed this large lizard “the last dragon” or “buaya darat”, i.e. "a crocodile crawling on the ground." There are not many Komodo dragons left in Indonesia, so since 1980 this animal has been included in the IUCN.
What does a Komodo dragon look like?
The appearance of the most gigantic lizard on the planet is very interesting - the head is like a lizard, the tail and paws are like an alligator, the muzzle is very reminiscent of a fairy-tale dragon, except that fire does not erupt from its huge mouth, but there is something bewitchingly scary in this animal. An adult Komod monitor lizard weighs over one hundred kilograms and can reach three meters in length. There are known cases when zoologists came across very large and powerful Komodo dragons, weighing one hundred and sixty kilograms.
The skin of monitor lizards is mainly gray with light spots. There are individuals with black skin color and with yellow small drops. The Komodo lizard has strong, “dragon” teeth, all serrated. Just once, looking at this reptile, you can be seriously frightened, since its menacing appearance directly “screams” to be captured or killed. It's no joke, the Komodo dragon has sixty teeth.
This is interesting! If you catch a Komodo giant, the animal will become very excited. From a previously seemingly cute reptile, the monitor lizard can turn into an angry monster. He can easily, with the help of , knock down the enemy who grabbed him, and then mercilessly injure him. Therefore, it is not worth the risk.
If you look at the Komodo dragon and its small legs, you can assume that it moves slowly. However, if the Komodo monitor feels danger, or he spots a worthy victim in front of him, he will immediately try to accelerate to a speed of twenty-five kilometers per hour in a few seconds. One thing can save the victim, fast running, since monitor lizards cannot move quickly for a long time, they become very exhausted.
This is interesting! The news has repeatedly mentioned killer Komodo dragons that attacked people when they were very hungry. There was a case when large monitor lizards entered villages, and, noticing children running away from them, caught up and tore them apart. The following story also happened when a monitor lizard attacked hunters who had shot a deer and were carrying the prey on their shoulders. The monitor lizard bit one of them to take away the desired prey.
Komodo dragons are excellent swimmers. There are eyewitnesses who claim that the lizard was able to swim across the raging sea from one huge island to another within a few minutes. However, to do this, the monitor lizard needed to stop for about twenty minutes and rest, since it is known that monitor lizards get tired quickly
Origin story
People started talking about Komodo dragons at the time when, at the beginning of the 20th century, on the island. Java (Holland) received a telegram from the manager that in the Lesser Sunda Archipelago there live huge, either dragons or lizards, which scientific researchers have not yet heard of. Van Stein from Flores wrote about this, that near the island of Flores and on Komodo there lives a “land crocodile” still incomprehensible to science.
Local residents told Van Stein that monsters inhabit the entire island, they are very ferocious, and they are feared. Such monsters can reach 7 meters in length, but Komodo dragons that are four meters long are more common. Scientists from the Zoological Museum of Java decided to ask Van Stein to gather people from the island and get a lizard that European science did not yet know about.
And the expedition managed to catch a Komodo dragon, but it was only 220 cm tall. Therefore, the searchers decided, at all costs, to get the giant reptiles. And they eventually managed to bring 4 large Komodo crocodiles, each three meters, to the zoological museum.
Later, in 1912, everyone already knew about the existence of the giant reptile from the published almanac, in which a photograph of a huge lizard was printed with the caption “Komodo dragon.” After this article, Komodo dragons also began to be found in the vicinity of Indonesia, on several islands. However, only after the Sultan’s archives were studied in detail, it became known that giant foot-and-mouth disease was known as early as 1840.
It so happened that in 1914, when the World War, a group of scientists had to temporarily close the research and capture of Komodo dragons. However, 12 years later they started talking about Komodo dragons in America and called them “dragon comodo” in their native language.
Habitat and life of the Komodo dragon
For over two hundred years now, scientists have been studying the life and habits of the Komodo dragon, and also studying in detail what and how these giant lizards eat. It turned out that cold-blooded reptiles do nothing during the day; they are active in the morning until the sun rises and only from five in the evening they begin to look for prey. Komodo monitor lizards do not like moisture; they mainly settle where there are dry plains or live in tropical forests.
The giant Komodo reptile is initially clumsy, but can reach unprecedented speeds, up to twenty kilometers. Even alligators don't move fast like that. They also find food easy if it is at a high altitude. They calmly rise on their hind legs and, relying on their strong and powerful tail, get food. They can smell their future victim very far away. They can also smell blood at a distance of eleven kilometers and notice the victim far away, since their hearing, sight, and smell are excellent!
Monitor lizards love to eat any tasty meat. They won't refuse one large rodent or several, and even insects and larvae will be eaten. When all the fish and crabs are washed ashore by a storm, they are already scurrying here and there along the shore to be the first to eat the “seafood”. Monitor lizards feed mainly on carrion, but there have been cases when dragons have attacked wild sheep, water buffalo, dogs and feral goats.
Komodo dragons do not like to prepare for a hunt in advance; they stealthily attack the prey, grab it and quickly drag it to their shelter.
Reproduction of monitor lizards
Monitor lizards mate primarily warm summer, in the middle of July. Initially, the female is looking for a place where she can safely lay her eggs. She does not choose any special places; she can take advantage of the nests of wild chickens living on the island. By sense of smell, as soon as the female Komodo dragon finds the nest, she buries the eggs so that no one will find them. Nimble ones are especially greedy for dragon eggs wild boars who are accustomed to destroying birds' nests. Since the beginning of August, one female monitor lizard can lay more than 25 eggs. The weight of the eggs is two hundred grams and ten or six centimeters in length. As soon as the female monitor lizard lays her eggs, he does not leave them, but waits until her cubs hatch.
Just imagine, the female waits all eight months for the cubs to be born. Small dragon lizards are born at the end of March and can reach 28 cm in length. Small lizards do not live with their mother. They settle down to live on tall trees and there they eat what they can. Cubs are afraid of adult alien monitor lizards. Those who survived and did not fall into the tenacious clutches of hawks and snakes swarming on the tree begin to independently search for food on the ground after 2 years, when they grow up and get stronger.
Keeping monitor lizards in captivity
It is rare that giant Komodo dragons are domesticated and placed in zoos. But, surprisingly, monitor lizards quickly get used to humans, they can even be tamed. One of the representatives of the monitor lizards lived in the London Zoo, freely ate from the hands of the beholder and even followed him everywhere.
Nowadays, Komodo dragons live in national parks Rindja and Komodo Islands. They are listed in the Red Book, so hunting these lizards is prohibited by law, and according to the decision of the Indonesian committee, the capture of monitor lizards is carried out only with a special permit.
Dinosaurs in miniature, little dragons, whatever they call them. And these are all the lizards scurrying around us, a suborder of reptiles from the order Scaly. These include all scaly animals, except snakes and two-year-olds. Let's look at this beauty of the animal world of the planet and read the facts about them.
Today there are almost 6,000 species of tailed reptiles in the world.
Representatives of various families differ in size, color, habits, habitat; some exotic species are listed in the Red Book. In nature, the most common reptile can be considered real lizard, average length whose body is 10-40 cm.
Unlike snakes, lizards have movable, separated eyelids, as well as an elastic, elongated body with long tail, covered with keratinized scales, which change several times per season. The paws are clawed.
A lizard's tongue may have different shapes, color and size, it is usually movable and easily pulled out of the mouth. It is with their tongue that many lizards catch prey.
Most lizards are capable, in case of danger, of throwing away their tail (autotomy). By contracting the cartilaginous muscles at the base of the tail, the lizard discards the tail and grows it again, albeit in a slightly shortened form.
Sometimes a lizard grows back not one, but two or three tails:
The longest living is the brittle lizard. A male brittle lizard (Anguis fragilis) lived at the Zoological Museum in Copenhagen, Denmark, for over 54 years, from 1892 to 1946.
While most animals perceive the world in black and white, lizards see their surroundings in orange.
There are 2 ways of lizard reproduction: laying eggs and viviparity.
Females of small species of lizards lay no more than 4 eggs, while large ones lay up to 18 eggs. The weight of an egg can vary from 4 to 200 grams. The egg size of the world's smallest lizard, the round-toed gecko, does not exceed 6 mm in diameter. The egg size of the world's largest lizard, the Komodo dragon, reaches a length of 10 cm.
Gila Monster Lizard (HELODERMA SUSPECTUM)
Their bite is poisonous. When bitten, grooves in the tiny, sharp teeth release a painful neurotoxin into the victim's body.
Roundhead (PHRYNOCEPHALUS)
It is called the toad-headed agama - it is small, lives in empty spaces and is distinguished by one feature - communication in round-headed agama occurs with the help of a tail, which they curl, and also interesting body vibrations, with which they quickly bury themselves in the sand. Fancy mouth folds scare off enemies.
The infraorder iguana (lat. Iguania) includes 14 families, the most prominent representative of which is the chameleon, inhabiting Africa, Madagascar, the Middle East, Hawaii and some American states
Common iguanas (green)
The iguana is the fastest lizard - the speed of movement on land is 34.9 km/h - recorded in the black iguana (Ctenosaura), living in Costa Rica.
Marine iguanas
Marine iguanas Galapagos Islands, whom Darwin nicknamed “demons of darkness,” spend all their time diving under water and scraping off the rocks overgrown plants that iguanas feed on.
Chameleon
The chameleon is a highly unique reptile. Its toes are webbed, it has an extremely prehensile tail, and it shows its attitude by changing color, binocular-like eyeballs moving independently of each other, while a very long and sticky tongue shoots out and catches its prey.
Unusual even among chameleons is Brookesia minima or the dwarf leaf chameleon. It is without a doubt one of the smallest reptiles known to man.
Most large lizard was a monitor lizard exhibited in 1937 at the St. Louis Zoo, Missouri, USA. Its length was 3.10 m and its weight was 166 kg.
The longest lizard is the thin-bodied Salvador monitor lizard, or musk deer (Varanus salvadorii), from Papua New Guinea. It is precisely measured to reach a length of 4.75 m, but approximately 70% of its total length is in the tail.
Geckos
Geckos are a large family of small to medium-sized, highly distinctive lizards, characterized in most cases by biconcave (amphicoelous) vertebrae and the loss of the temporal arches.
Many types of geckos have amazing camouflage abilities - their skin darkens or lightens depending on the light. environment. During experiments with wall geckos, their eyes were closed, but they continued to change color according to the usual algorithm.
Gecko lizards do not have eyelids, so they are forced to periodically wet a special transparent membrane over their eyes with their tongue.
Flying dragon and gecko's foot
Flying dragons are a genus of the subfamily of Afro-Arabian dragons of the family Agamidae; unites about thirty Asian species arboreal insectivorous lizards. Other Russian names of this genus are also found in the literature - dragons, flying dragons
The frilled lizard is a lizard from the agamidae family. In the genus Chlamydosaurus is the only species.
There are also species of lizards in which males are completely absent. Lizards Cnemidophorus neomexicanus reproduce without laying eggs using parthenogenesis (a type of reproduction in which the participation of a male individual is not necessary).
The lesser belt-tailed lizard (Cordylus cataphractus) is a species of lizard from the family of belt-tailed lizards.
