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AWESOME ANIMALS
Komodo dragons did you know?
komodo dragon WORD SEARCH
• e Komodo dragon is only found in the wild on ve small Indonesian islands: Komodo, Rintja, Gillimontang, Padar and the western tip of Flores, all located in Komodo National Park. eir habitats include open woodlands along with dry savannah and scrubby hillsides and occasionally dried-up river beds.
• Komodo dragons have huge appetites and have been known to eat up to 80% of their body weight in a single feeding. While they are big eaters, they are also extremely e cient eaters! ey consume about 88% of their prey, including the bones, hooves, hide, and intestines.
• eir tails are almost as long as their body and extremely strong.
• ese lizards are solitary animals, typically only gathering together during breeding season in September of each year. A er mating, females lay up to 30 leathery eggs in a hole in the sand where they incubate for 8-9 months before hatching. At the time a Komodo dragon crawls out of his egg, he is completely independent, spending most of his time up in a tree until around 5 years old when he grows large enough to fend for himself on the ground.
• Komodo dragons have limited sight and hearing, but make up for it with their sense of smell. ey use their long, yellow, forked tongue to sample the air. A er sampling the air, they touch the tongue to the roof of their mouth, where chemical analyzers in the roof of the mouth are able to “smell” prey, such as a deer, by recognizing the airborne molecules. If the concentration of molecules present on the le tip of the tongue is greater than that sample from the right, the Komodo dragon knows the deer is approaching from the le .
• Komodo dragons are very aggressive animals! Once the lizard bites its prey, bacteria and venom in its saliva will kill the prey within a few days. A er the animal dies, which can take up to four days, the Komodo uses its powerful sense of smell to locate the body.
• ey live around 30 years in the wild.
• Habitat changes and human predators have led to these lizards becoming an endangered species.
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