Lizard King
GET TO KNOW THE WORLD’S LARGEST LIZARD AND ONE
OF INDONESIA’S NATIONAL TREASURES
The Komodo dragon is a type of monitor lizard
that lives on the Indonesian islands of Komodo,
Flores and Rinca. You wouldnt want to come
face to face with one though, because an adult
Komodo dragon is two to three metres long
and weighs about 70 kilogrammes. The reptiles
have scaly, thickly folded skin, a large, muscular
tail and powerful jaws.
They have long forked tongues, which they
use to smell Komodo dragons use their keen
sense of smell to detect dead animals that are
up to 8.5 kilometres away. They mostly eat carrion, but they will also ambush live birds and mammals like deer and wild ponies. A Komodo
dragons saliva is poisonous and can kill an
animal within 24 hours of being bitten.
It can eat 80 percent of its body weight in
one sitting, and since it only passes about 10
percent as waste, a Komodo dragon doesnt
have to eat very often. It can run very fast for
short spurts, and the young dragons can
climb trees.
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