Huge monitor lizard from Komodo island. For everyone and about everything. Why is it listed in the Red Book

Komodo is a small island in Indonesia famous all over the world for its giant monitor lizards or dragons. These largest lizards on earth grow up to 3 meters in length and weigh 150 kilograms. Their bite is poisonous and they are dangerous to humans.

Because adult dragons have a very good sense of smell, they can locate the source of the smell of blood up to 5 km away. Several cases have been documented of Komodo dragons attempting to attack tourists with minor open wounds or scratches. A similar danger threatens women who visit the island while in the menstrual cycle ...

We arrived at the island early in the morning. For some reason, I imagined it to be flat and rocky, but it turned out to be green and hilly, similar to Tolkien's Interearth:

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There is no port on the island and we stopped at the roadstead. The pies of the natives immediately approached us:

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Someone just watched the huge white ship with interest, and someone tried to sell local beads and wood crafts:

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At first, I did not understand how they were going to take money from me and hand over the goods to me, given that the open deck of the ship is at the height of the 5th floor:

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Everything fell into place when we got into the boats to get to the shore:

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There was no pier on the Island where our liner could moor, and we were taken ashore in Tenders (lifeboats):

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Each such boat comfortably accommodates 80 passengers. In case of an emergency, if the boat needs to be used for its intended purpose, 2 times more is placed here:

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There is a small fishing village on the island where about 700 people live. They were all fenced off from tourists with an invisible fence so that they would not pester too much with their souvenirs for "van dola!":

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Souvenirs could be purchased both from local children and in a civilized way - in a beach shop:

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We were accompanied deep into the island by several rangers and locals. The locals had long sticks with a horn at the end in their hands. They protect themselves from dragons. In the event of an attack, they rest their horns against the dragon's eyes and move it away from them:

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On the territory of the park in the jungle, paths are cut through which tourists are led:

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These are not bananas, but the fruits of a cotton tree:

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When they ripen, they open up and look like large wads of cotton:

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On Komodo Island, there are not only giant lizards, but also specimens of quite familiar sizes:

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Too lazy to change the lens. These ants are shot at 500-ku:

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Flying lizard:

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Deer are the favorite food of dragons. Having tracked down a deer, wild boar or buffalo in the bushes, the dragon attacks and seeks to inflict a lacerated wound on the animal, into which poison and many bacteria from oral cavity lizard. Even the largest male dragons do not have enough strength to immediately defeat a large ungulate animal, but as a result of such an attack, the victim’s wound becomes inflamed, blood poisoning occurs, the animal gradually weakens and dies after a while. The monitor lizards are left only to follow the victim until she dies. The time for which it dies varies depending on its size. For example, in a buffalo, death occurs after 3 weeks.

At one time, they conducted an experiment and tried to feed the monitor lizards with the brought deer, but they began to get sick and die. For some reason, they can only eat local animals:

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In total, about 1000 passengers descended on the island. We were divided into groups of 25 people and were taken along the same route with an interval of 5 minutes:

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Dragons were "prepared" for us on the route in advance. If you take a closer look at their bellies, you will see that they recently ate a hearty meal and simply cannot move:

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The Komodo dragon is the largest lizard species in existence today.

Adult specimens of Komodo monitor lizards reach a weight of 70 kg and a body length of up to 3 m. It is worth noting that in captivity this monitor lizard can be even larger.

The adult has a dark brown color with a yellow speck. The cutting edge of the monitor lizard's teeth is somewhat reminiscent of a saw blade. This structure of the tooth allows the animal to easily butcher the carcass of its prey.

Habitat of Komodo monitor lizards

The habitat of this lizard is very localized. It is distributed only on the islands of Indonesia, such as Flores, Rinka, Jili Motang and Komodo. From the name of the last island, in fact, the name of this species comes. Research shows that these lizards left Australia 900,000 years ago and moved to the islands.

Komodo dragon lifestyle

These lizards form groups only during the mating season and during feeding. The rest of the time, stay alone. Activity is shown mainly during daylight hours. Being in the shade for the first part of the day, they go hunting in the second half, when the heat subsides somewhat. They spend the night in shelters, from which they crawl out only in the morning.

Monitor lizard keeps dry areas well-lit by the sun. Usually these are savannahs, dry forests of the tropics and arid plains. From May to October it inhabits dry riverbeds. In order to profit from carrion, it often visits the coast. Varan - great swimmer. Cases have been noted when these lizards even swam from island to island.

Burrows up to 5 meters deep serve as a refuge for monitor lizards. The lizards dig these holes on their own. In this they are helped by their powerful paws with sharp claws. Younger monitor lizards, unable to dig their own similar holes, find shelter in hollows and cracks in trees. The monitor lizard is able to reach speeds of up to 20 km/h for a short time. To get to food at a certain height, the monitor lizard is able to rise on its hind legs.

AT natural environment habitat adult lizards do not meet enemies. However, young animals can often become prey birds of prey and snakes.

In captivity, these lizards rarely live up to 25 years, although, according to some reports, in wild environment monitor lizards can live up to half a century.

Feeding the Komodo dragon

food for komodo dragon served by a variety of animals. The diet includes fish, crabs, lizards, turtles, rats, snakes. The lizard also feeds on birds and insects. Of the large animals, deer, horses and even buffaloes sometimes become prey. In especially hungry years, monitor lizards do not disdain to eat individuals of their own species. In this case, as a rule, very small individuals and young animals become victims of cannibalism.

Adults very often feed on carrion. Sometimes the method of obtaining such carrion is very interesting.

The monitor lizard, having tracked down a large animal, suddenly attacks it, inflicting wounds on it, into which poison and bacteria from the oral cavity of this lizard will get. The monitor lizard then follows its prey in anticipation of its death.

Such persecution can last from several hours to several weeks. These lizards feel carrion well thanks to their surprisingly developed sense of smell.

Today, poaching within the habitat of monitor lizards causes great harm and reduces the number of large ungulates. Because of this, monitor lizards are often forced to settle for smaller prey. The consequence of this state of affairs is a decrease in the average size of adult Komodo dragons. This size has decreased by 25% over the past 10 years.

Reproduction of Komodo dragons

Sexual maturity comes to these lizards in the tenth year of existence. Until this time, only a small part of individuals survive. As for the sexual structure, females occupy only 23% of the entire population.

Due to the huge competition during the mating season, there are fights between males for females. In these fights, adult experienced individuals often win. The old and the young, as a rule, remain out of work.

mating season in monitor lizards starts at winter time. Having mated, the female is taken to search for a place for masonry. As a rule, such places are compost heaps created by weed chickens as nests. These heaps are natural incubators for Komodo dragon eggs. In these heaps, females dig deep burrows. Laying takes place in summer period from July to August. There are about 20 eggs in one clutch. With a diameter of 6 cm and a length of 10 cm, the eggs weigh about two hundred grams.

The largest monitor lizard in the world lives on the Indonesian island of Komodo. This big lizard the locals called it “the last dragon” or “buaya darat”, i.e. "crocodile crawling on the ground." There are not many Komodo dragons left in Indonesia, so since 1980 this animal has been listed in the IUCN.

What does a Komodo dragon look like?

The appearance of the most gigantic lizard of the planet is very interesting - the head is like that of a lizard, the tail and paws are like those of an alligator, the muzzle is very reminiscent of a fairy-tale dragon, except that fire does not erupt from a huge mouth, but there is something bewitching and terrible in this animal. An adult monitor lizard from Komodo weighs over a hundred kilograms, and its length can reach three meters. There are cases when zoologists came across very large and powerful Komodo monitor lizards, weighing one hundred and sixty kilograms.

The skin of monitor lizards is mostly gray color with light spots. There are individuals with a black color of the skin and with yellow small drops. At Komodo lizard- strong, "dragon" teeth and all with serrations. Only once, looking at this reptile, you can be seriously scared, as its formidable appearance directly “screams” to grab or kill. It's no joke, the Komodo dragon has sixty teeth.

It is interesting! If you catch a Komodo giant, the animal will get very excited. From before, at first glance, a cute reptile, a monitor lizard can turn into an angry monster. He can easily, with the help, knock down the enemy who grabbed him, and then mercilessly injure him. So it's not worth the risk.

If you look at the Komodo monitor lizard and its small legs, we can assume that it moves slowly. However, if the Komodo monitor lizard feels danger, or he spotted a worthy victim in front of him, he will immediately try in a few seconds to accelerate to a speed of twenty-five kilometers per hour. One thing can save the victim, a quick run, since monitor lizards cannot move quickly for a long time, they run out of breath.

It is interesting! The news has repeatedly mentioned Komodo killer lizards that attacked a person, being very hungry. There was a case when large monitor lizards they went into the villages, and noticing the children running away from them, they caught up and tore them apart. There was also such a story when the monitor lizard attacked the hunters, who shot the deer and carried the prey on their shoulders. One of them was bitten by a monitor lizard to take away the desired prey.

Komodo dragons are excellent swimmers. There are eyewitnesses who claim that the lizard was able to swim across the raging sea from one huge island to another within a few minutes. However, for this, the monitor lizard needed to stop for about twenty minutes and rest, as it is known that monitor lizards quickly get tired

Origin story

They started talking about Komodo monitor lizards at a time when, at the beginning of the 20th century, on about. Java (Holland) sent a telegram to the manager that huge dragons or lizards live in the Lesser Sunda Archipelago, which scientific researchers have not yet heard of. Van Stein from Flores wrote about this, that near the island of Flores and on Komodo lives an "earth crocodile" still incomprehensible to science.

The locals told Van Stein that monsters inhabit the entire island, they are very ferocious, and they are feared. In length, such monsters can reach 7 meters, but four-meter Komodo dragons are more common. Scientists from the zoological museum of the island of Java decided to ask Van Stein to collect people from the island and get a lizard that European science did not yet know about.

And the expedition managed to catch a Komodo monitor lizard, but it was only 220 cm tall. Therefore, the seekers decided, by all means, to get giant reptiles. And they eventually managed to bring 4 large Komodo crocodiles, each three meters long, to the zoological museum.

Later, in 1912, everyone already knew about the existence of a giant reptile from a published almanac, in which a photograph was printed huge lizard with the signature "Komodo lizard". After this article, in the vicinity of Indonesia, Komodo dragons also began to be found on several islands. However, only after the Sultan's archives were studied in detail, it became known that giant foot-and-mouth disease was known as early as 1840.

It so happened that in 1914, when the World War, a group of scientists had to temporarily close research and the capture of Komodo monitor lizards. However, 12 years later, Komodo monitor lizards were already talked about in America and they were nicknamed on their own. mother tongue dragon comodo.

Habitat and life of the Komodo monitor lizard

For over two hundred years, scientists have been studying the life and habits of the Komodo dragon, as well as studying in detail what and how these giant lizards eat. It turned out that cold-blooded reptiles do nothing during the day, they become active from the very morning, until the sun rises, and only from five in the evening they begin to look for their prey. Monitor lizards from Komodo do not like moisture, they mainly settle where the dry plains or live in the rainforest.

The giant Komodo reptile is only initially clumsy, but can develop unprecedented speed, up to twenty kilometers. So even alligators do not move quickly. They are also easily given food if it is at a height. They calmly rise on their hind legs and, leaning on their strong and powerful tail, get food. They can smell their future victim very far away. They can also smell blood at a distance of eleven kilometers and notice the victim far away, since their hearing, sight, and sense of smell are at their best!

Monitor lizards love to treat anyone delicious meat. They won't give up on one. large rodent or a few, and even insects and larvae will be eaten. When all the fish and crabs are thrown ashore by a storm, they are already scurrying back and forth along the coast to be the first to eat the “seafood”. Monitor lizards feed mainly on carrion, but there have been cases when dragons attacked wild sheep, water buffaloes, dogs and feral goats.

Komodo dragons do not like to prepare in advance for the hunt, they sneak up on the victim, grab it and quickly drag it to their shelter.

Breeding monitor lizards

Monitor lizards mate predominantly warm summer, in the middle of July. Initially, the female is looking for a place where she could safely lay her eggs. She does not choose any special places, she can use the nests of wild chickens living on the island. By scent, as soon as the female Komodo dragon finds a nest, she buries her eggs so that no one will find them. Nimble wild boars, who are used to ruining bird nests, are especially greedy for dragon eggs. From the beginning of August, one female monitor lizard can lay more than 25 eggs. The weight of the eggs is two hundred grams with ten or six centimeters in length. As soon as the female monitor lizard lays her eggs, he does not leave them, but waits until her cubs hatch.

Just imagine, all eight months the female is waiting for the cubs to be born. Small dragon lizards are born at the end of March, and can reach a length of 28 cm. Small lizards do not live with their mother. They settle down to live on tall trees and there they eat what they can. Cubs are afraid of adult alien monitor lizards. Those who survived and did not fall into the tenacious paws of hawks and snakes teeming on a tree, begin to independently search for food on the ground after 2 years, as they grow up and get stronger.

Keeping monitor lizards in captivity

It is rare that giant Komodo dragons are tamed and settled in zoos. But, surprisingly, monitor lizards quickly get used to a person, they can even be tamed. One of the representatives of monitor lizards lived in the London Zoo, freely ate from the hands of the beholder and even followed him everywhere.

Nowadays, Komodo dragons live in national parks Rinja and Komodo islands. They are listed in the Red Book, so hunting for these lizards is prohibited by law, and according to the decision of the Indonesian committee, catching monitor lizards is carried out only with special permission.

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 an article in the Bulletin of the Botanical Gardens about the existence of a new species of reptile, naming the animal, previously unknown to the spider, the 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.

The First World War forced to stop research, and only 12 years later interest in the Komodo monitor resumed. Now, US zoologists have become the main researchers of the giant reptile. On the English language this reptile became known as komodo dragon(comodo dragon). For the first time, a live specimen was caught by the expedition of Douglas Barden in 1926. In addition to two live specimens, Barden also brought 12 stuffed animals to the United States, three of which are on display at the American Museum. natural history in New York.

Indonesian national park Komodo (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. Of course, the main celebrity of the park is 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 the habits and lifestyle well. 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 a tree where they spend most life.

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 eat almost everything: large insects and their larvae, crabs and storm-tossed fish, 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 in good agreement with the fact that the only famous representative 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 “the 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 forgotten by time islands to see vivo the last representatives of the ancient world.

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!