Dragon animal. The Komodo dragon is a crazy zoologist. Interesting facts about the Komodo dragon

Dragon from Komodo Island Varanus komodoensis), he is a Komodo monitor lizard, he is also a giant Indonesian monitor lizard - this 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, respectively, is 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 monitor lizard is the most interesting - either a lizard, or a dragon, or a dinosaur. And the island natives believe that most of all this creature looks like an alligator, and therefore they call it buaya darat, which means ground crocodile in the local dialect. And although the Komodo dragon has only one head and does not spew sheaves of flame 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 patches, and (especially!) appearance teeth - squeezed from the sides, with cutting, jagged edges. A cursory glance at this perfect arsenal, which is a "dragon" jaw, is enough to understand: jokes are bad with the Komodo dragon. With over 60 teeth and a jaw structure reminiscent of a shark's mouth, isn't this the perfect killing machine?

What is the diet of a giant reptile? No, no, monitor lizards have only superficial resemblance to vegetarian dinosaurs: the gastronomic preferences of the Komodo dragon are strikingly different from food preferences ancient ancestor. The tastes of the lizard are distinguished by an enviable variety: it does not disdain carrion and readily absorbs any living creature - from insects and birds to horses, buffaloes, deer and even its own brethren. Perhaps it is for this reason that newborn lizards, having barely hatched, immediately leave their mother, hiding from her in the dense canopy of trees?

Indeed, cannibalism is a quite common phenomenon among Komodo dragons: the dinner menu of adult monitor lizards often includes young relatives, smaller in size. A hungry monitor lizard can also pose a threat to humans, and it is not uncommon for prey to match in its weight category with the attacker. How do the lizards manage to prevail over the victim? Monitor lizards track down large prey from an ambush, and at the time of the attack they either knock down the victim with a powerful blow of the tail, breaking its legs, or bite into the flesh of a wild boar or deer with their teeth, inflicting a deadly lacerated wound.

The chances of survival for a wounded animal are scanty, because during a bite, dangerous bacteria from oral cavity lizards, as well as poison from poisonous glands mandible reptiles. Inflammation develops at an accelerated pace, and the only thing left for the Komodo dragon is to wait until the victim completely loses his strength and cannot resist. He stubbornly follows the wounded prey, not losing sight of it. Sometimes such tracking lasts up to three weeks - after so much time, a buffalo bitten by a monitor lizard dies.

In the photo, I am a dragon and a slightly excited Lera :)

Those wishing to see such handsome men in natural environment habitation would have to go to the indonesian islands, since komodo dragons live there. However, daredevils who have planned such a journey 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 pangolin located at a distance of 5 km with its smell. Cases of attacks on tourists have taken place, so the rangers accompanying tourist groups are usually armed with long, strong poles. Just in case.

The dragons of Komodo Island are without a doubt the most stunning animal discovery of the 20th century on planet Earth. In 1912, flying over the group of Lesser Sunda Islands in , a Dutch pilot was forced to land on the shore of a small uninhabited island due to a breakdown. Having comfortably settled down on the beach, the pilot began to repair his plane, when he suddenly felt that someone was standing behind him. Turned around and freaked out...

A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF

Kingdom: Animals (Animalia).
Type: Chordata.
Class: Reptiles (Reptilia).
Order: Scaled (Squamates).
Family: Monitor lizards (Varanidae).
Genus: Monitor lizards (Varanus).
Species: Komodo monitor lizard (Varanus komodensis).

WHY IS INCLUDED IN THE RED BOOK

According to scientists, there are between 4,000 and 5,000 Komodo monitor lizards left on Earth. Why did it happen so? There are many reasons: both high volcanic activity and pollution environment, and illegal hunting of monitor lizards for skins and claws, and tourism. Part of the reptiles die of starvation, as poachers kill animals that are easiest for monitor lizards to hunt. The Komodo National Park was established in 1980 specifically to protect and preserve the unique species.

WHERE Dwells

The Komodo dragon lives in Indonesia, but only on a limited number of islands: Rinca, Gili Motang, Florex and Komodo. According to the name of the last place, the monitor lizard received the name "Komodo". Scientists believe that the species is home to. Presumably, about 900 thousand years ago, the species entered the Indonesian islands, where it successfully took root. These animals do their best to avoid human contact.

HOW TO FIND OUT

The Komodo dragon is the most big lizard Earth. IN wild nature the weight of monitor lizards reaches 70 kg, but when kept in captivity, they can be much larger. The largest Komodo dragon known to science reached a body length of 3.13 m and weighed 166 kg. In this case, about half the length is the tail. The skin of monitor lizards is brownish-brown and covered with light yellow speckles. The color of young monitor lizards is more intense. They have eye spots on their backs and tails, which can coalesce to form stripes. Aborigines often call the Komodo monitor lizard "ground crocodile". The nickname is fully justified by many features. external structure reptiles. She has a stocky squat body, short, widely spaced legs, a flattened head, very sharp, laterally flattened teeth with jagged edges. They help to cope excellently even with large prey. The long curved claws are impressive! With their help, monitor lizards dig deep shelter holes and hunt their victims.

LIFESTYLE AND BIOLOGY

The Komodo dragon leads a solitary lifestyle. He is rather secretive and does not like company. Only occasionally, for example mating season or during the search for food, monitor lizards unite in small groups. The rest of the time, each individual prefers to take care of itself on its own.

The Komodo dragon is highly dependent on temperature. Therefore, many features of his life are influenced by weather conditions. He is active during the day. He spends the night in a shelter, from which, if necessary, he can still go out and go hunting. The Komodo dragon is an excellent swimmer. It perfectly overcomes the distances between the islands by water. Juveniles spend a lot of time in trees, while older reptiles are more common on the ground. With its seeming clumsiness, the Komodo monitor lizard is able to reach speeds of up to 20 km / h and get food from a small height, standing on its hind legs and leaning on its tail.

The average life expectancy is 25 years. It is assumed that they can live longer. By about 10 years of age, monitor lizards reach sexual maturity. Males arrange fights for the female, and the winner gets the right to continue their race. The female lays a clutch of 20 eggs in a hole or compost heap. The female remains to guard the nest for eight to nine months, until the babies are born. Immediately after birth, they leave the nest and rush to the trees, where they spend the first few years of their lives.

Who can not be called picky in food is the Komodo monitor lizard. He is ready to swallow anything that moves, be it a grasshopper, a frog or a dog. Its impressive size, sharp teeth and tenacious claws help it attack even such large animals as a horse or a deer. Of course, he is not able to immediately kill the animal. But, inflicting wounds on him, with which poison and bacteria enter, the monitor lizard patiently waits until his victim dies, and only then proceeds to the meal. Do not disdain monitor lizards and carrion. In its environment, the Komodo dragon is the largest and dangerous predator so he has no one to fear.

The Komodo dragon easily moves from one emotional state into another. A peacefully lying and seemingly calm reptile can become angry and aggressive in a matter of minutes. Komodo monitor lizards have been known to attack zoo employees and ordinary people. Therefore, the giant should be treated with extreme caution.

In December 1910, to the Dutch administration on the island of Java from the manager of the island of Flores (according to civil affairs) Stein van Hensbroek received information that the outlying islands of the Lesser Sunda Archipelago are not known to science giant creatures.

Van Stein's report stated that in the vicinity of Labuan Badi of Flores Island, as well as on the nearby island of Komodo, an animal lives, which the local natives call "buaya-darat", which means "earthen crocodile".

Of course, you already guessed what we are talking about now ...

According to local residents, the length of some monsters reaches seven meters, and three- and four-meter buya-darats are common. The curator of the Butsnzorg Zoological Museum at the Botanical Park of West Java Province, Peter Owen, immediately entered into correspondence with the manager of the island and asked him to organize an expedition to get a reptile unknown to European science.

This was done, although the first lizard caught was only 2 meters 20 centimeters long. Her skin and photographs were sent by Hensbroek to Owens. In the accompanying note, he said that he would try to catch a larger specimen, although this was not easy to do, since the natives were terribly afraid of these monsters. Convinced that the giant reptile was not a myth, the Zoological Museum sent an animal trapping specialist to Flores. As a result, the employees of the Zoological Museum managed to get four specimens of "earth crocodiles", two of which were almost three meters long.

In 1912, Peter Owens published in the Bulletin botanical garden an article about the existence of a new species of reptile, naming an animal previously unknown to the spider Komodo monitor lizard (Varanus komodoensis Ouwens). Later it turned out that giant monitor lizards are found not only on Komodo, but also on the small islands of Ritya and Padar, lying west of Flores. A careful study of the archives of the Sultanate showed that this animal was mentioned in the archives dating back to 1840.

First World War forced to stop research, and only after 12 years, interest in the Komodo monitor resumed. Now, US zoologists have become the main researchers of the giant reptile. On English language This reptile became known as the Komodo dragon. For the first time, a live specimen was caught by the expedition of Douglas Barden in 1926. In addition to two living specimens, Barden also brought 12 effigies to the United States, three of which are on display at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

The Indonesian Komodo National Park, protected by UNESCO, was founded in 1980 and includes a group of islands with adjacent warm waters And coral reefs with an area of ​​more than 170 thousand hectares.
The islands of Komodo and Rinca are the largest in the reserve. Certainly, main celebrity Park - Komodo dragons. However, many tourists come here to see the unique terrestrial and underwater flora and fauna of Komodo. There are about 100 species of fish here. There are about 260 species of reef corals and 70 species of sponges in the sea.
The national park is also home to such animals as the maned sambar, Asian water buffalo, wild boar, Javan macaque.

It was Barden who established the true size of these animals and refuted the myth of seven-meter giants. It turned out that males rarely exceed the length of three meters, and females are much smaller, their length is not more than two meters.

Years of research have made it possible to study well the habits and lifestyle of giant reptiles. It turned out that Komodo dragons, like other cold-blooded animals, are active only from 6 to 10 am and from 3 to 5 pm. They prefer dry, well-sun areas, and are generally associated with arid plains, savannahs, and tropical dry forests.

In the hot season (May-October), they often stick to dry riverbeds with jungle-covered banks. Young animals can climb well and spend a lot of time in trees, where they find food, and in addition, they hide from their own adult relatives. Giant monitor lizards are cannibals, and adults, on occasion, will not miss the opportunity to feast on smaller relatives. As shelters from heat and cold, monitor lizards use burrows 1-5 m long, which they dig with strong paws with long, curved and sharp claws. Hollow trees often serve as shelters for young monitor lizards.

Komodo dragons, despite their size and outward clumsiness, are good runners. At short distances, reptiles can reach speeds of up to 20 kilometers, and at long distances, their speed is 10 km / h. To get food from a height (for example, on a tree), monitor lizards can stand on their hind legs, using their tail as a support. Reptiles have good hearing, sharp eyesight, but their most important sense organ is the sense of smell. These reptiles are able to smell carrion or blood at a distance of even 11 kilometers.

Most of the monitor lizard population lives in the western and northern parts of the Flores Islands - about 2000 specimens. About 1000 live on Komodo and Rincha, and on the smallest islands of the Gili Motang and Nusa Kode groups, only 100 individuals each.

At the same time, it was noticed that the number of monitor lizards has fallen and individuals are gradually shrinking. They say that the decline in the number of wild ungulates on the islands due to poaching is to blame, so monitor lizards are forced to switch to smaller food.

From modern species prey much larger than itself is attacked only by the Komodo dragon and the crocodile monitor lizard. The crocodile monitor lizard has very long and almost straight teeth. This is an evolutionary adaptation for successful feeding by birds (breaking through dense plumage). They also have serrated edges, and the teeth of the upper and lower jaws can act like scissors, which makes it easier for them to dismember prey in the tree, where they spend most of their lives.

Yadozuby - poisonous lizards. Today, two species are known - gila monster and escorpion. They live mainly in the southwestern United States and Mexico in rocky foothills, semi-deserts and deserts. The most active poisonous teeth are in the spring, when their favorite food appears - bird eggs. They also feed on insects small lizards and snakes. The poison is produced by the submandibular and sublingual salivary glands and through the ducts enters the teeth of the lower jaw. When bitten, the teeth of the gila teeth - long and curved back - almost half a centimeter enter the body of the victim.

The menu of monitor lizards includes a wide variety of animals. They practically eat everything: large insects and their larvae, crabs and fish thrown out by storms, rodents. And although monitor lizards are born scavengers, they are also active hunters, and often large animals become their prey: wild boars, deer, dogs, domestic and feral goats, and even the largest ungulates of these islands - Asian water buffaloes.
Giant monitor lizards do not actively pursue their prey, but rather steal it and grab it when it comes close by itself.

When hunting large animals, reptiles use very reasonable tactics. Adult monitor lizards, leaving the forest, slowly move towards grazing animals, from time to time they stop and crouch to the ground if they feel that they are attracting their attention. wild boars, they can knock down deer with a blow of their tail, but more often they use their teeth - inflicting a single bite on the animal's leg. This is where success lies. After all, now the course is launched " biological weapons» Komodo dragon.

For a long time it was believed that the victim was eventually killed by disease-causing organisms in the monitor lizard's saliva. But in 2009, scientists found that in addition to the “deadly cocktail” of pathogenic bacteria and viruses in saliva, to which monitor lizards themselves have immunity, reptiles are poisonous.

Studies led by Bryan Fry from the University of Queensland (Australia) have shown that the number and types of bacteria commonly found in the oral cavity of the Komodo dragon is not fundamentally different from other carnivores.

Moreover, according to Fry, the Komodo dragon is a very clean animal.

Komodo dragons inhabiting the islands of Indonesia are the most large predators on these islands. They prey on pigs, deer and Asiatic buffalo. 75% of pigs and deer die from the bite of a monitor lizard after 30 minutes from blood loss, another 15% - after 3-4 hours from the poison secreted by its salivary glands.

A larger animal - a buffalo, having been attacked by a monitor lizard, always, despite deep wounds, leaves the predator alive. Following its instinct, a bitten buffalo usually seeks refuge in a warm body of water teeming with anaerobic bacteria and eventually succumbs to the infection that enters its legs through the wounds.

Pathogenic bacteria found in the oral cavity of the Komodo dragon in previous studies, according to Fry, are traces of infections that enter his body from an infected drinking water. The number of these bacteria is not enough to cause the death of a buffalo from a bite.

The Komodo dragon has two venom glands in its lower jaw that produce toxic proteins. These proteins, when released into the body of the victim, prevent blood clotting, lower blood pressure, contribute to muscle paralysis and the development of hypothermia. Everything in general leads the victim to shock or loss of consciousness. The venom gland of Komodo monitor lizards is more primitive than that of poisonous snakes. The gland is located in the lower jaw under the salivary glands, its ducts open at the base of the teeth, and do not exit through special channels in poisonous teeth, as in snakes.

In the mouth, poison and saliva mix with decaying food, forming a mixture in which many different deadly bacteria multiply. But this did not surprise scientists, but the poison delivery system. It turned out to be the most complex of all such systems in reptiles. Instead of injecting with a single blow with their teeth, like poisonous snakes, monitor lizards have to literally rub it into the victim's wound, making jerks with their jaws. This evolutionary invention helped giant monitor lizards exist for thousands of years.

After a successful attack, time begins to work for the reptile, and the hunter is left to follow the victim all the time. The wound does not heal, the animal becomes weaker every day. After two weeks, even such a large animal as a buffalo has no strength left, its legs buckle and it falls. For the monitor lizard, it's time for a feast. He slowly approaches the victim and rushes at her. At the smell of blood, his relatives come running. In places of feeding, fights often arise between equal males. As a rule, they are cruel, but not deadly, as evidenced by the numerous scars on their bodies.

For people, a huge head covered like a shell, with unkind, unblinking eyes, a toothy gaping mouth, from which a forked tongue protrudes, all the time in motion, a bumpy and folded body of a dark brown color on strong spread legs with long claws and a massive tail is a living embodiment of the image of extinct monsters of distant eras. One can only be amazed at how such creatures could survive today practically unchanged.

Paleontologists believe that 5-10 million years ago the ancestors of the Komodo dragon appeared in Australia. This assumption is well aligned with the fact that the only known representative of large reptiles, Megalania prisca, ranging in size from 5 to 7 m and weighing 650-700 kg, was found on this mainland. Megalania, and the full name of the monstrous reptile can be translated from Latin, as a "great ancient tramp", preferred, like the Komodo monitor lizard, to settle in grassy savannahs and sparse forests, where he hunted mammals, including very large ones, such as diprodonts, various reptiles and birds. These were the largest poisonous creatures that ever existed on Earth.

Fortunately, these animals died out, but the Komodo dragon took their place, and now it is these reptiles that attract thousands of people to come to the time-forgotten islands to see the last representatives of the ancient world in natural conditions.

There are 17,504 islands in Indonesia, although these numbers are not final. The Indonesian government has set itself difficult task- to carry out a complete audit of all the Indonesian islands without exception. And who knows, maybe at the end of it there will still be open known to people animals, although not as dangerous as Komodo dragons, but certainly no less amazing!

The Komodo monitor lizard (giant Indonesian monitor lizard, Komodo dragon) (lat. Varanus komodoensis) is the largest in the world. The predatory reptile belongs to the order of scaly, the superfamily of monitor lizards, the family of monitor lizards, the genus of monitor lizards. The Komodo monitor lizard, which is also called the "dragon of Komodo Island", got its name from one of its habitats.

Seasoned and strong monitor lizards easily cope with more impressive prey: wild boars, buffaloes, and goats. Often gets into the teeth of adult Komodo monitor lizards livestock, and those who came to the reservoirs for a watering hole or accidentally met this dangerous lizard on the way. Monitor lizard from Komodo Island 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 connection of the bones of the lower jaw and a capacious stomach, which tends to stretch.

Komodo dragon hunting.

The principle of hunting the Komodo monitor lizard is quite cruel. Sometimes a large predatory lizard attacks its prey from an ambush, suddenly knocking down its “future dinner” with a powerful and sharp blow of the tail. At the same time, the impact force is so great that often potential prey gets leg fractures. 12 out of 17 deer die on the spot in a fight with a lizard. However, sometimes the victim manages to escape, though she can get severe injuries in the form of torn tendons or lacerations in the abdomen or neck area, which leads to inevitable death. The poison of the monitor lizard and the bacteria that are contained in the saliva of the reptile weaken the victim. In large prey, such as a buffalo, death can occur only 3 weeks after a fight with a monitor lizard. Some sources indicate that the giant Komodo monitor lizard will catch up with its prey by the smell and traces of blood to the point of complete exhaustion. Some animals manage to escape and heal their wounds, other animals fall into the clutches of predators, and others die from wounds inflicted by 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 still dies, monitor lizards run to the smell of carrion to eat the dead animal.

Komodo dragon venom.

Previously, it was believed that the saliva of the Komodo monitor lizard 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 producing special toxic proteins that cause a bitten victim to reduce blood clotting, hypothermia, paralysis, lower blood pressure and loss of consciousness. The glands have a primitive structure: they do not have channels in the teeth, as, for example, in snakes, but open at the base of the teeth with ducts. Thus, the bite of a Komodo monitor lizard is poisonous.

Monitor lizards from Komodo Island are the most large lizards in the world

Komodo monitor lizard, or giant Indonesian monitor lizard, or Komodo monitor lizard (lat. Varanus komodoensis) is a species of lizard from the monitor lizard family.

The species is distributed on the Indonesian islands of Komodo, Rinca, Flores and Jili Motang. The natives of the islands call it ora or buaya darat ("ground crocodile").

This is the largest living lizard in the world, individual representatives of this species can grow more than 3 meters in length and weigh more than 100 kilograms.

Unique national park Komodo is world famous, protected by UNESCO and includes a group of islands with adjacent warm waters and coral reefs with an area of ​​more than 170 thousand hectares.

The islands of Komodo and Rinca are the largest in the reserve. Their main attraction is "dragons", giant monitor lizards, found nowhere else on the planet.

Appearance

Wild adult Komodo dragons are usually 2.25 to 2.6 m long and weigh about 47 kg, males are larger than females and in some cases can reach a length of 3 meters and weigh about 70 kg.

However, in captivity, these lizards reach even larger sizes - the largest known specimen for which there is reliable data was kept at the St. Louis Zoo and had a length of 3.13 m and weighed 166 kg.

The tail length is about half of the total body length.

Currently, due to a sharp decline in the number of large wild ungulates on the islands due to poaching, even adult male monitor lizards are forced to switch to smaller prey.

Because of this, the average size of monitor lizards is gradually decreasing and now is about 75% of the average size of a mature individual 10 years ago.

Hunger sometimes causes the death of monitor lizards.

The color of adult monitor lizards is dark brown, usually with small yellowish spots and speckles. Young animals are more brightly colored; reddish-orange and yellowish eye spots are arranged in rows on their backs, merging into stripes on the neck and tail.

The teeth of the Komodo dragon are compressed laterally and have serrated cutting edges. Such teeth are well suited for opening and tearing large prey into pieces of meat.

Spreading

Komodo monitor lizards live on several islands of Indonesia - Komodo (1700 individuals), Rinka (1300 individuals), Jili Motang (100 individuals) and Flores (about 2000 individuals pushed closer to the coast by human activity), located in the Lesser Sunda Islands group.

According to researchers, Australia should be considered the birthplace of Komodo monitor lizards, where, probably, this species developed, after which it moved to the nearby islands about 900 thousand years ago.

From the history of discovery

In 1912, one pilot made an emergency landing on Komodo, an island 30 km long and 20 km wide, located between the islands of Sumbawa and Flores, which are part of the Sunda archipelago.

Komodo is almost entirely covered with mountains and dense tropical vegetation, and its only inhabitants were exiles, once subjects of the Sumbawa Raja.

The pilot told amazing things about his stay in this tiny exotic world: he saw huge, terrible four-meter-long dragons there, which, according to local residents, devour pigs, goats and deer, and sometimes attack horses.

Of course, no one believed a single word he said.

However, some time later Major P.-A. Owens, director of the Butensorg Botanical Gardens, proved that these giant reptiles do exist. In December 1918, Owens, determined to learn the secret of the Komodo monsters, wrote to Flores Island's civil administrator, van Stein.

The inhabitants of the island told that in the vicinity of Labuan Badio, as well as on the nearby island of Komodo, “buaya-darat”, that is, “earth crocodile”, lives.

Van Stein became interested in their message and was determined to find out as much as possible about this curious animal, and if he was lucky, then get one individual. When the business of the service brought him to Komodo, he received the information he was interested in from two local pearl divers - Kok and Aldegon.

They both claimed that among the giant lizards there were instances of six or even seven meters in length, and one of them even boasted that he personally killed several of these lizards.

During his stay on Komodo, van Stein was not as lucky as his new acquaintances. Nevertheless, he managed to get a specimen 2 m 20 cm long, the skin and photograph of which he sent to Major Owens.

IN cover letter he reported that he would try to catch a larger specimen, although this would not be easy: the natives were afraid, like death, of the teeth of these monsters, as well as the blows of their terrible tails.

Then the Butensorg Zoological Museum hastily sent him a Malay specialist in trapping animals to help him. However, van Stein was soon transferred to Timor, and he could not participate in the hunt for the mysterious dragon, which this time ended successfully.

Raja Ritara put hunters and dogs at the disposal of the Malay, and he was fortunate enough to catch four "earth crocodiles" alive, two of which turned out to be quite good specimens: their length was a little less than three meters.

And some time later, according to van Stein, some Sergeant Becker shot a four-meter-long specimen.

In these monsters, witnesses of past epochs, Owens easily recognized monitor lizards of a large variety. He described this species in the Bulletin of the Butensorg Botanical Garden, calling it Varanus komodensis.