Thursday, 24 October 2013
I just spent a week away in Indonesia where I traveled by boat from the island of Flores to Komodo island to see the famous Komodo dragons. Our guide told us that there are about 2000 dragons living on the island. This island is the only place in the world that you find these endangered lizards. I learned that they can live about 50 years. The first 4 years of their life is spend living in a hole in a tree. Once they hatch, they quickly climb a tree and hide to protect themselves from other Komodo dragons. They can run about 20 km/hour, although on our tour we did not see any dragons run. Mostly we saw sleeping dragons. These lizards can grow to about 10 feet long and weigh 160 pounds. What amazed me was that they do look like dinosaurs. I also learned that they are venomous and they bite their prey, usually deer or water buffalo, and then wait for the animal to die from an infection caused by the venom in their saliva.
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