Beast Chronicles (5)
If you look up "cold-blooded animals," you'll get this definition: "An animal whose body temperature changes with changes in ambient temperature." "Such animals do not have a mechanism to regulate their own body temperature in their bodies, and can only rely on their own behavior to regulate the emission of body heat or absorb heat from the external environment to increase their body temperature." When "cold-blooded" is used as an adjective, it's often synonymous with cold-blooded, cold-blooded, and the same goes for English. On my wildlife exploration trips, I have encountered many cold-blooded animals, and on a biological level, of course, they are warmer animals; on a perceptual level, they really have no feelings, not only for other animals, but also for their own children.
Michael Clayton writes in his novel Jurassic Park: "For mammals such as humans, reptiles have an inexplicable heretical atmosphere. No wonder humans hate reptiles. That dead silence, the coldness, and the pace were all completely wrong. In an alligator or other large reptile, one perceives that this is another creature altogether, and feels that one is in another world, a world that has disappeared from the earth. "When you see these two animals, you can understand this passage, it's written too appropriately.
Bay crocodile
I drifted on the Kinabadang River in Borneo, riding a speedboat and watching the animals along the banks of the river haunt the labyrinth of rainforest. The Kinabadang River is yellow and calm. But under the calm, it seems that there is always a certain emotion brewing, inexplicable, but it makes people smell a hysterical meaning. There seemed to be something floating on the surface of the river, and as the aftermath of the boat paddled up and down, if you looked closely, it looked like a section of dead wood. Oh, the dead wood sank – it was alive!
Bay crocodile, since the Late Miocene, this terrifying creature has existed in this form in the world, dominating the top of the food chain for tens of millions of years. As the largest crocodile in the world, the male bay crocodile can reach up to 6 meters in length and weigh more than 1 ton. The skull of the bay crocodile provides a huge amount of space for its developed jaw muscles, and the jaw muscles of the bay crocodile are as hard as bone, as if it is an extension of the skull, which gives it the strongest bite force on the surface of 1673 kg (laboratory force measurements, the object is a 4.59 meter bay crocodile). Their recipes are so varied that this crocodile can even swim into the sea, hence the name saltwater crocodile. This is undoubtedly the most ferocious creature in the world.
From the rivers and swamps of India all the way to the northern coast of Australia, monkeys, wild boars, birds, bats... Even bull sharks and humans have been reduced to food for bay crocodiles. The bay crocodile ambushes its prey in the water, dragging it into the water and drowning. Small prey swallows directly, while larger prey tears up their prey by tumbling violently in the water. Any animal that dares to break into its territory is likely to be attacked by bay crocodiles, including its kind. When a bird or bat approaches the surface of the water, the bay crocodile can use its limbs and tail to simultaneously exert force, pushing the huge body out of the water with amazing force, and taking a bite in the air, like a dragon in a legendary waterhole. Compared to winged dragons, the fluttering pair of birds or bats is just a decoration.
Komodo dragons
As soon as I landed on Komodo Island, there was a commotion on the beach. A male deer is trying to get rid of a female Komodo dragon. The terrified deer trampled the dragon with its powerful front hooves, but did not appear to cause any harm to the dragon. In the confusion, the Komodo dragon suddenly burst into flames, biting the deer's leg fiercely, and the deer was seriously injured. The Komodo dragon took advantage of the situation and bit the deer's injured leg several times at a speed that was difficult to catch with its eyes, and the deer dragged the injured leg and staggered to escape, but because of the serious injury, it did not run two steps before the front hoof was weak and fell to the ground. Komodo monitor lizards have glands that secrete venom and are filled with deadly bacteria due to long-term scavenging. Bitten deer will die in a short time. But the Komodo dragon in front of him obviously did not have the patience to wait, and it went straight forward, biting the abdomen of the fallen deer, shaking its huge head, and using its powerful upper and lower jaws to open the belly of the still moaning deer. It wanted to take the deer for itself before the other Komodo dragons could smell the blood. The deer went through a long period of pain before it died, and the Komodo dragon pulled out its internal organs and greedily devoured it, while at that time, it was still alive and even tried to stand up... (See Explore Komodo Island for details)
On the neighboring island of Rinca, two male Komodo dragons are fighting fiercely on a patch of grass. By the time I got to the scene, the two dragons had finished their confrontation, their mouths wide open, biting each other, and a snake-like hissing sound came from their throats. One of the dragons pressed its huge head against its opponent, and the latter was undaunted, turning flexibly, swinging its whip-like tail to hit the attacker's head hard, and rushing up to the opponent's head in the same way as the opponent dodged.
Komodo dragon bite force is only about 39 Newtons, but has a strong neck. The suppressed Komodo Dragon jerked its body up with its forelimbs, and while breaking free of its opponent, it turned to face its opponent and constantly hissed with rage. The two Komodo dragons hedged at the same time, their front paws pushing each other, waiting for the opportunity to bite each other's heads, and in such a confrontation, the two Komodo dragons stood up completely! Nearly 3 meters tall, two Komodo dragons stood in front of us, the power and tyranny of the prehistoric behemoths fully revealed, and the two dragons pushed each other like wrestlers with sharp front paws, waiting for the opportunity to bite any part of each other's bodies. Until we left, the battle of the dragons did not win or lose, and the two dragons were immersed in endless confrontations driven by primitive biology. Winning wars, obtaining mating rights, reproducing, eating cubs, nature has created such creatures in the most vigorous way, which has withstood the vicissitudes of time and evolution, exists outside of time in a strange way, but everything is reasonable and conforms to nature.