Indonesian touristic circuit » The Komodo Dragon

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 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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