In 1936, in order to catch a Komodo dragon home, the British explorer Galen ordered 3 hounds to besiege a monitor lizard on Rinca Island, but to his surprise, the Komodo dragon was too toxic, and the 3 fierce hounds were all poisoned alive, and then directly torn apart by the monitor lizard for lunch.
In fact, not only animals, but also humans are sometimes the target of Komodo dragons. Statistics: since 2010, 12 people have been attacked for provoking monitor lizards, especially those who accidentally bite them, once they miss the best treatment opportunity, they can only wait for the toxicity to spread and die.
About the Komodo dragon
Living on three small islands in Indonesia, the Komodo dragon is the largest lizard on Earth, reaching a length of up to 3 meters, weighing more than 180 pounds and living up to 50 years as an adult. Their tails are about 1 meter long, their limbs are thicker than those of humans, and their heads are about the size of a football. As a carnivore, the Komodo dragon has a 30-centimeter-long tongue and 60 sharp teeth nearly 2.8 centimeters long.
To date, more than 30 people worldwide have been bitten by Komodo dragons, 5 of whom have tragically lost their lives. Some people, even after being admitted to the best hospitals in the area, their wounds still swelled and ulcerated months later.
What makes it so dangerous is that the Komodo dragon's venom is almost on par with cobra venom. Komodo dragons have so many bacteria in their saliva that for a long time it was widely believed that bitten animals died of bacterial invasion. Only later did scientists discover that the Komodo dragon had a huge poisonous glandular tube in the front of its jaw, which contained many kinds of highly toxic ingredients. These venoms can dilate blood vessels, lower the blood pressure of prey, prevent blood clotting, and quickly plunge prey into a coma.
Komodo dragons have long fed on carrion, so the saliva of Komodo dragons has more than 70 kinds of bacteria, which can infect tetanus, plague, sepsis cholera and other diseases.
They silently approach their prey, take a bite before they are ready, and then quietly wait for the venom and bacteria to spread. Komodo dragons then use their tongues to collect the smell of air, and they can feel 4 to 9.5 kilometers of carrion, so as to track the strength of the previous bite and then eat a full meal.
Komodo monitor lizards are carnivorous as well as scavengers. The hunting style is very similar to that of lions and cheetahs, first ambushing and waiting for the prey to approach, and then raiding with fast running. So by the time you find it, you've basically been bitten.
Blood will gush out, this time you do not want to appoint, generally speaking, Komodo dragons will try to bite the prey in one bite, of course, there are many special cases, such as your skin is thick, Komodo dragon found that there is no way to bite the prey, so it let the prey go.
Of course, the matter is not over, you trot all the way in front, komodo dragons are in the back of the slow chase, when you feel dizzy, congratulations on entering the second stage.
If you get away with going too far with Komodo's first attack, don't stop praying, because most of the animals died under the poison of Komodo dragons.
In the early days of komodo, many experts believed that komodo dragons were scavengers, so much so that they had many bacteria in their mouths that could kill their prey due to sepsis. Therefore, early research on Komodo dragons believed that Komodo dragons let go of their prey only to wait for their prey to slowly die of sepsis.
Komodo dragons have glands in their mouths that secrete venom, just like venomous snakes. Many of the venom of the Komodo dragon is very similar to the venom of the Taipan snake and cobra, and it is also its trick to kill its prey.
If the prey is bitten by the Komodo dragon, the venom will inhibit the blood of the prey from clotting, and at the same time will reduce the blood pressure of the prey, paralyzing the muscles of the prey, which in turn will lead to a decrease in the body temperature of the prey. When the body temperature is low to a certain extent, the prey will be shocked, or even unconscious, at which time the Komodo dragon will come forward to eat a full meal.
As early as the 21st century, scientists generally believed that the saliva of Komodo dragons contained a large number of bacteria, this is because scientists detected only 48 kinds of bacteria from the saliva of Komodo dragons (sampling the saliva of Komodo dragons remaining on the path), so it should be Komodo dragons that bite their prey with their teeth, and the bacteria invade the prey, eventually causing the prey to die. But scientists also have another problem, which is that these bacteria are common bacteria, and even if they enter the wound, they will not cause the prey to die within a few hours.
Until 2002, Professor Frye of the Natural History Museum of Humboldt University in Berlin led the research team to solve the mystery, they first used magnetic resonance imaging to find two thick glands in the jaw of the Komodo dragon, and then dissected an old and dead Komodo dragon at the Singapore Zoo to remove a gland, using the liquid in the gland to inject mice and liquid analysis, found that these two are actually Komodo dragon's venom glands, the venom in it is mainly anti-hemagglutination substances. This also explains why the prey bitten by the Komodo dragon bleeds constantly, and why the Komodo dragon bites the prey and slowly follows the prey.
Why are Javanese tigers a natural enemy of Komodo dragons?
Because the Javan tiger is at the top of the food chain, it can weigh up to 150 kilograms. Komodo dragons weigh only 100 kilograms, so the Javan tiger back to prey on Komodo dragons is a manifestation of the weak and strong, so the Java tiger is the biggest natural enemy of the Komodo dragon, when the Javan tiger is extinct, the Komodo dragon has no natural predators to become the hegemon.
The Javanese tiger, a tiger that once lived on the Indonesian island of Java, has been extinct since the 1980s and, although there have been numerous sightings to date, but none of them have been confirmed, and is the third subspecies of tiger living in Indonesia, in addition to the Balinese tiger that has also been extinct and the Sumatran tiger is at great risk.
It is also a kind of tiger that has recently been extinct, the Size of the Javan Tiger is smaller than the Bengal Tiger, the Komodo Dragon has almost no natural enemies, the only natural enemy of Komodo is the Javan Tiger, but due to the over-hunting of humans, the Extinction of the Javan Tiger has made the Komodo Dragon almost no natural enemies, the Komodo Dragon skin is thick, don't look at them as lizards, their skin is still very resistant.
Growth and reproduction of Komodo monitor lizards:
Monitor lizards are sexually mature for 3-5 years, estrus in July every year, and mate between May and August, and male monitor lizards determine their maters through fighting, and there are often casualties. The victorious male monitor lizard will rub the female's head with her chin, scrape her back, and if the female is satisfied with the male, she will rub the male in turn. Generally speaking, after mating, the male will stay for a few days to prevent other males from mating.
Monitor lizards lay their eggs around September. Newly mature females can only lay 4-6 eggs, every 2-3 days, a clutch of eggs has an average of 20 eggs, the incubation period is 7 months, and the female will lay eggs in the ground or in the tree burrow to protect them. Around the age of ten, entering the peak period of spawning, laying more than two dozen eggs at a time, burying the eggs in the sand nest, incubating the eggs by the natural temperature of the sun's radiation, and after eight months, the young lizards broke out of the shell. When first out of the shell, the lizards are the size of the house geese we raise. It can live for about 50 years.
parthenogenesis
Parthenogenesis is also called unisexual reproduction, i.e. eggs can develop into normal new individuals without fertilization.
Komodo monitor lizard females sometimes reproduce as parthenogenes, i.e. no males are needed to reproduce. During May 2006 at Chester County Zoo in the United Kingdom, a solitary female Komodo dragon actually underwent a strange phenomenon of parthenogenesis – arguably the highest performance of parthenogenesis in lizards today.
The komodo dragon history dates back 40 million years
Studies have shown that komodo dragons originated in Asia 40 million years ago and later migrated to Australia. About 15 million years ago, the collision between Australia and the Southeast Asian mainland allowed it to move back to the present-day Indonesian archipelago and extend eastward to the island of East Timor. Despite their long history, they were not discovered by humans until around 1910, when they lived on only a few fixed islands and only more than 3,000 remained. In 1996, the IUCN added it to the 1996 Red List of Threatened Species.
Since Komodo monitor lizards do not survive in other parts of the world, Indonesia is increasingly cherishing them. In 1980, the Indonesian government established the 72,000-hectare Komodo National Park, which covers Komodo Island, Rinca Island, Padar Island and 26 surrounding islands, the main purpose of which is to protect Komodo dragons. In 1991, the park was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The Komodo dragon has become a "national treasure" that Indonesians are proud of, and its status in the minds of the people of the country is like the status of giant pandas in the hearts of Chinese. Today, the number of Komodo dragons has grown to more than 5,700, continuing their immortal legend on the planet.