The Lizard King...Among the thousands of small islands of Indonesia is one called Komodo -- a mountainous stretch of volcanic rock covered with grass, palms, and small pockets of jungle. This little island, 22 miles (35 km) long, along with a few others nearby, is the sole habitat of the world's largest lizard. The people of Komodo call this animal "ora." Elsewhere it is known as the Komodo Island monitor or more popularly, the Komodo dragon.
Oras can reach 10 feet in length and weigh 300 pounds or more -- particularly after a meal. They are the top predators in their habitat, feeding on wild boar, deer, water buffalo, dogs, goats, rats, snakes, birds, other oras, and -- once in a great while -- humans. They hunt by ambush, hiding in the scrub brush along trails and in the tall grass of the savannas. Despite their lumbering appearance, oras can move with alarming speed when they want to, lunging from their hiding places and sprinting toward their startled victims. They can't sustain a long chase, but often all they need to subdue their prey is one bite. Oras carry poisonous bacteria in their mouths so even if they don't immediately catch their prey, the attack is often fatal. Using their long forked tongues (oras and other monitor lizards are closely related to snakes), they track the scent of their prey as the wounded animal slowly weakens from the infected bite -- a process that can take several days. When the victim can no longer flee, the ora moves in for the kill. Oras are voracious eaters. They devour every bit of their prey -- bones, fur, hooves -- ripping off huge chunks with their razor-sharp serrated teeth and swallowing the pieces whole. Like all predators, oras serve an important ecological function: they preserve ecological stability by ensuring that prey species (deer, for example) don't overpopulate and degrade their island habitat.
...A Crowded Kingdom Oras are reptiles. They don't need to eat as often as big mammalian predators, such as tigers. As a result, the small island of Komodo can support quite a few of these giant monitor lizards -- their total population on the island is estimated at about 4,000 to 5,000 animals. This same amount of territory could only support a few dozen tigers. Still, these numbers don't tell the whole story. The ora population includes only about 350 breeding females. And as human populations grow, the ora's limited habitat shrinks. On some islands, the coexistence between people and giant lizards is an increasingly uneasy one. Komodo Island is now a popular ecotourist attraction. The Indonesian government is attempting to regulate this traffic so that disruption of the oras is kept to a minimum.
Oras can reach 10 feet in length and weigh 300 pounds or more -- particularly after a meal. They are the top predators in their habitat, feeding on wild boar, deer, water buffalo, dogs, goats, rats, snakes, birds, other oras, and -- once in a great while -- humans. They hunt by ambush, hiding in the scrub brush along trails and in the tall grass of the savannas. Despite their lumbering appearance, oras can move with alarming speed when they want to, lunging from their hiding places and sprinting toward their startled victims. They can't sustain a long chase, but often all they need to subdue their prey is one bite. Oras carry poisonous bacteria in their mouths so even if they don't immediately catch their prey, the attack is often fatal. Using their long forked tongues (oras and other monitor lizards are closely related to snakes), they track the scent of their prey as the wounded animal slowly weakens from the infected bite -- a process that can take several days. When the victim can no longer flee, the ora moves in for the kill. Oras are voracious eaters. They devour every bit of their prey -- bones, fur, hooves -- ripping off huge chunks with their razor-sharp serrated teeth and swallowing the pieces whole. Like all predators, oras serve an important ecological function: they preserve ecological stability by ensuring that prey species (deer, for example) don't overpopulate and degrade their island habitat.
...A Crowded Kingdom Oras are reptiles. They don't need to eat as often as big mammalian predators, such as tigers. As a result, the small island of Komodo can support quite a few of these giant monitor lizards -- their total population on the island is estimated at about 4,000 to 5,000 animals. This same amount of territory could only support a few dozen tigers. Still, these numbers don't tell the whole story. The ora population includes only about 350 breeding females. And as human populations grow, the ora's limited habitat shrinks. On some islands, the coexistence between people and giant lizards is an increasingly uneasy one. Komodo Island is now a popular ecotourist attraction. The Indonesian government is attempting to regulate this traffic so that disruption of the oras is kept to a minimum.
