Komodo Dragons Most Likely Evolved In Australia

jojackson

jojackson

New Member
ScienceDaily (Oct. 1, 2009) — The world's largest living lizard species, the Komodo dragon (Varanus komodoensis), is vulnerable to extinction and yet little is known about its natural history. New research by a team of palaeontologists and archaeologists from Australia, Malaysia and Indonesia, who studied fossil evidence from Australia, Timor, Flores, Java and India, shows that Komodo Dragons most likely evolved in Australia and dispersed westward to Indonesia....

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090929203027.htm

090929203027-large.jpg
 
There are some at the Toronto Zoo.

You might think they are beautiful...but they are dangerous...
"Twenty-eight Gram-negative and 29 Gram-positive species of bacteria were isolated from the saliva of the 39 Komodo dragons"...
http://www.jwildlifedis.org/cgi/content/abstract/38/3/545

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/05/090518-komodo-dragon-venom.html

Parthenogenesis...
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v444/n7122/abs/4441021a.html

Smell..."they can smell up to 11 km away depending on the direction of the wind."...
http://www.komodoflorestour.com/news_40_VARANUS_KOMODOENSIES.html
 
Pure said:
Stop bragging Dan.
That is pretty cool though.
Click to expand...

LOL, I dont write the storys mate! :D
Not surprising though really, Our climate has been well suited to herps for a very long time.

Cool info Kinyongia, Id rather not be too close without a good barrier between me and such a lizard !
A little boy on one of the islands was killed a few years back by these dragons, while urinating in bushes.

They are quite powerful creatures and the bacteria/toxins are really overkill.
There is a fat old Dragon at Sydneys Taronga zoo. Its wild cousins would laugh at it!
It waddles from its den into its enclosure and simply flops down and looking up at the keeper, opens its mouth "feed me then, c'mon".
Gets fed about a dozen very large dead rats, eats them like candy.
 
kinyonga said:
There are some at the Toronto Zoo.

You might think they are beautiful...but they are dangerous...
"Twenty-eight Gram-negative and 29 Gram-positive species of bacteria were isolated from the saliva of the 39 Komodo dragons"...
http://www.jwildlifedis.org/cgi/content/abstract/38/3/545

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/05/090518-komodo-dragon-venom.html

Parthenogenesis...
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v444/n7122/abs/4441021a.html

Smell..."they can smell up to 11 km away depending on the direction of the wind."...
http://www.komodoflorestour.com/news_40_VARANUS_KOMODOENSIES.html
Click to expand...

Actually there was a documentary on one of the discovery channels not too long ago that actually proved them to have a weak form of venom in their saliva. I haven't read or seen any other studies on this to confirm it, so take it for what it is.

Either way a bite from one of these is not something you should want to entertain.
 
LOL since when have you cared what anyone thinks of you. :p

Thank you for that article. That confirms what I remember.

In the documentary, they also debunk the bacteria theory. Wile the bacteria do cause infection the animal usually dies from the venom long before that happens. Funny though, that article was written around about the same time I saw the documentary.

I seem to remember then doing advanced toxicology tests to find the venom as it wasn't blatantly apparent, but am not 100% sure on that.
 
True story, one of my neighbors grandfathers is a herpetologist here in Oklahoma. He's supposedly got quite a bit of clout for studying all kinds of reptiles. He'd brought Medaterranean geckos to Norman, and they've survived on the college campus for years. If you look on a field map now, you'll see that these geckos are all over the medaterranean and then one tiny dot in the center of Oklahoma. I guess the climate is perfect for them. Anyway, he went to the galapagos islands to study komodo dragons. Spent weeks with them. Long story short, one of them bit half of his thumb off. I remember him showing it to me and telling me about how he just got to close to them when he was studying them. Coolest missing finger story I had ever heard.
 
LOL since when have you cared what anyone thinks of you.
Click to expand...

LMAO, good point! :)

I already posted the Nat. Geog. link to the venom information...guess you didn't look at my links?
Click to expand...

Sorry sweetheart , Must've Zoned out, but you average a half dozen links per post, the brain just shuts down after a bit! :p :D

Anyway, he went to the galapagos islands to study komodo dragons. Spent weeks with them.
Click to expand...

LOL, perhaps he went to Australia to study the art of 'spinning a yarn' (telling tall tales) too?
Galapagos Komodos? LOL :)
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom