Indonesian touristic circuit » KOMODO

Entre The Dragon

admin — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 04:16:52 +0000

Most Nusantara islands have been connected to other land masses in the past, but the Komodo, Rinca, and Padar have always stood alone. Their parched, mountainous terrain produced nothing of interest to conquerors, and the deadly currents that surrounded them held all but the bravest fisherman and pearl divers at bay for centuries. One of the driest spots of the entire archipelago, Komodo bakes in the heat of the equatorial sun almost year round, reaching a scorching 43 degrees celcius at the height of the dry season. Only the heartiest flora and fauna species usually survive in such an environment. Why the dragons evolved on these islands, and nowhere else, remains a mystery, but painstaking research is gradually revealing more about them. The dragons are normally solitary, and mating usually occurs when several animals gather in the vicinity of a kill. Breeding takes place in the dry season, after which the female lays an average of 35 eggs which she buries in an old megapode mound or under large boulders on the hillsides. The mother guards the nest shortly before laying, and for a short period afterward, but is sometimes driven off by another female who is about to lay. The young hatch eight to nine months later, and immediately scamper up the nearest tree where their speckled coloring serves as excellent camouflage. At first they feed on other lizards and insects, then rats and birds, but eventually grow too large for climbing and are forced to compete for wild game on the ground below, among their cannibalistic elders. The dragons dislike the intense heat of the day and the cool of the evening and use burrows along embankments of dried riverbeds to regulate their body temperature. The dragons basking in the sun appear to be lazy and harmless, however they are able to rise their bellies off the ground on muscular legs and sprint short distances at up to 11 miles per hour. Their massive tails are effective for knocking down prey and enormous claws on their forefeet are efficient ripping devices.[email_link]

The Komodo Island

admin — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 04:12:38 +0000

The Komodo island and neighboring Rinca are between Sumbawa and Flores, approximately five hundred kms east of Bali island. The shape of the island is very irregular, its three hundred and fourty square kms spread over a number of peninsulas and promontories. The dry hills, which rise to seven hundred and thirty five meters, sprout skinny Lontar palmiras. The plankton-rich seas around Komodo and support amazing reefs, and a range of large marine life, including whales and dolphins. There is one village on Komodo, and the six hundred or so Komodo islanders cling precariously to the eastern shore. Despite the small size of the community, they have developed their own distinct dialect. The make their living by fishing at night with pressure lamps from graceful, twin-hulled catamarans called bagans. The National Park of Komodo lies within an area known as the Wallacea, a transitional zone running roughly north-south where the Asian fauna from the Sunda Shelf west of Lombok intermingles with Australian species from the Sahul Shelf further east. Large land-dwelling mammals were unable to migrate to the isolated Komodo island, but swimming and flying animals did. The monsoon forests of Komodo teem with activity, particularly early in the morning before the sun is at its peak. Squawking cockatoos flock in often leafless trees, disturbing large green imperial pigeons, black-naped orioles, sunbirds, flowerpeckers, and noisy friarbirds, while shiny black drongos and enormous crows soar nearby. The few mammals found in the park–crab-eating macaques, wild pigs, buffalos, horses, a healthy population of Timor deer and a few wild dogs—were perhaps introduced by man centuries ago. Small lizards and geckos abound, and the snake population includes green snakes, vipers, and cobras. Two species of frogs are also found in the island. The National Park of Komodo also encompasses a large area of sea where the waters are rich in plankton and oxygen. The snorkeling is excellent. Colorful crinoids, nudibranchs, giant clams, turtles, corals of numerous shapes and sizes, and a multitude of reef and pelagic fish, sharks and rays inhabit reefs which are within easy swimming distance of the beaches. These waters serve as a migratory route for whales and dolphins, and often flying fish and schools of tuna skim the surface of the open sea. The monsoon forest species thrive under the hot, dry conditions: Acacia, Corypha elata, and an occasional stand of bamboo are interspersed with the brilliant orange flowers of the wild kapoks, soursop, and custard apple trees, and the gnarled, sour-podded tamarinds. High up in the treetops are epiphytes: staghorn ferns and several species of orchids. On the forest floor, junglefowl and quail scratch for insects, and megapodes build their dirtmound nests, often disturbed by burrowing or egg-hungry dragons. On the rare occasions when the rains do fall, the islands quickly turn a lush green. Purple-petaled flowers burst into bloom, attracting a variety of butterflies. The tall grasses on the hillsides, usually brown, are reminiscent of a sea of young rice, waving in the wind.[email_link]

The Dragon of Komodo

admin — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 04:06:20 +0000

Because of its great size and ferocity, and fire-like tongue, served as the original model for the Chinese dragon, so it is said that the dragon of Komodo. Perhaps this is so, but to the men of science, Varanus Komodonensis is a lizard. It is huge–the largest recorded specimen was more than 3 meters long and weighted over 150 kilos–but it is still a zoologically describable animal. The dragon of Komodo, the largest lizard on earth, is found only on the islands of Komodo, Padar, and Rinca, and parts of western Flores. Locally called Ora, the dragons are most numerous on Komodo, which together with nearby Rinca has been set aside as a National Park. The lizards are one of eastern Indonesia’s biggest tourist attractions, and in recent years, with improved transportation and promotion, Komodo island has turned into minor zoo of gawking tourists. It’s the road to the New Seven Wonders. Until 1911, the scientific world knew nothing of the dragon, when van Hensbrack of the Netherlands Indies Army ‘discovered’ the huge animals. The scientific description of the lizard followed in 1912, when P.A. Ouwens, the curator of the zoological museum of Bogor in Java, described and named the species.[email_link]

KOMODO

admin — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 04:00:41 +0000

The dragon of Komodo, Varanus komodoensis, a Komodo island’s jurrasic-age inhabitant, a born predator. Firstly year of a Varanus komodoensis’s life is spent living in the trees, where it predates on insects, and so small gnawers and birdies. When it reaches about a meter long, the young Draco turns too big to continue a tree-living existence. Once on the ground, the lizard’s list of ‘target’ creatures extends to wild grunters, horses, Bubalus bubalis and, most of all, deer of the species Cervus Timorensis, which can weigh over 150 kilos, also human being. In 1987, a 12-year-old boy was killed by one of the dragons on Rinca. The offending dragon was exiled to Flores but returned on its own, swimming back. An adult woman was also bitten by a dragon on Rinca, but she survived. On July 18,1972 an 84-year-old Swiss tourist, Baron Rudolf Van Biberegg, ws killed by dragons. Native tribes called it Ora, the adult Ora is all-devouring, devouring anything from insects to large things, from putrefying carrion to members of its own species. Its sharp sense of smell can detect carrion from 8 klicks away, but it’s also a good hunter. The dragon locates its prey by sight as well as smell, the roles stealth to bring it down. The Ora catches its quarry while it’s numb, or ambuscades it along game trails. An Ora has been seen gulping down a neonate foal while its mother, too exhausted from the deliverance to protect her junior, looks on helplessly. the flora of Komodo island tends toward open savanna and scrub, with some forests. the drier hills are overlooked by palmyra palms. Cover is essential for the Ora, for it’s overlarge to creep up on its quarry in the open. Although they aren’t commonly known to run down their intended quarry, on at least one occasion an Ora has been timed at more than thirty km/h – and this for several hundred metres. the hunt is over as soon as the Draco clamps its jaws on any part of the quarry. In the scarce case that the hunted animal is able to wrench itself free of the robust jaws, it will promising soon die anyway of its wound, and the contagion induced by the Ora’s powerful saliva. Evisceration is the draco’s favorite killing style. Massive bleedin’ comes about when the Draco rips out the breadbasket wall. The Ora then ofttimes swallows up its head in the its abdomen, ripping out and swallowing the viscuses.

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