Komodo Dragon

Names & Nicknames: Komodo dragon, Komodo monitor, Komodo island monitor, ora, buaya darat (land crocodile), biawak raksasa (giant monitor), and Biscobra (which refers to it being twice as deadly as a cobra)

Size: These dragons live up to their namesakes – they are the largest lizards in the world. Females are on the small-ish (for a Komodo) side, not reaching more than 2.5 metres in length. The males, however, can reach over 3 metres, and one chunky boy weighed in at a whopping 166kg! Though he had a belly full of food then, so this is considered a slight exaggeration. Still, these lizards can easily be as hefty as a professional rugby player!

Smell: Komodo dragons are notorious for their bad-smelling breath – not that we'd recommend getting close enough to smell it...

Communication: These chonkers are mostly solitary, and males will defend their territories fiercely. When they do get together it's usually to mate, eat, or fight. Komodo dragons communicate their territory boundaries to other dragons by leaving scent trails, and if they still get too close, they use sounds like hisses and body language like tail swishes and throat inflations to tell other dragons to get lost!

Favourite Hangout: Komodo dragons are found only on a few small islands in Indonesia, most of them on their namesake, Komodo Island. They love hanging out in open savannas, dry grasslands, and tropical forests on their island homes.

Favourite Snack: They'll eat just about anything with a pulse – as well as carrion (dead animals), well after the pulse has stopped. A Komodo dragon's favourite meal is an easy one, and their diet consists of (but is not limited to) lizards, snakes, birds, insects, deer, goats, rodents, monkeys, water buffalos, rodents, and other Komodo dragons.

Eating Habits: Komodo dragons are opportunistic hunters, happy to snap up anything that crosses their path. They hunt primarily through stealth, lying down before launching a surprise attack. A Komodo dragon's mouth is full of harmful bacteria that lead to deadly infections. So once they land a bite, it's only a matter of time before the unlucky animal succumbs to illness and is weak enough for the dragon to seal the deal. When it’s feasting time, a Komodo dragon puts your dad at Christmas lunch to shame, eating up to 80% of its body weight in a single sitting, and it can go over a month without eating again.

Toilet Humour: It can be tough being a young Komodo dragon, alongside the standard predators, young dragons have to watch out for larger ones, who aren't against a little bit of cannabilism. To help ward off larger lizards, young komodos roll around in the poo and intestines of dead animals to keep them off the scent. Certainly not our preferred fragrances.

Love Language: These fearsome predators actually have more of a soft side than you might think. Komodo dragons, unlike most lizards, can be monogamous, forming life-long bonds with their partners. A dominant male who has established the right to mate with a female will court her by rubbing her chin, licking her shoulder, neck, and head, and scratching her back, creating a bond that can last for life. On the flip side of this, a female dragon don’t need no man, and can actually reproduce asexually (without a male at all) in a process called parthenogenesis, just like our feathered friend the Californian condor!

If you see them: There's something starkly beautiful and prehistoric about seeing what is basically a living dinosaur. There is a reason to feel slightly intimidated, however. These majestic creatures are apex predators, but unfortunately, they are losing some of their main prey species, such as Timor deer, to overhunting. This means they need to take every opportunity they can get, and they have been known to fatally attack humans if they get too close.

Red Flags: The main threat to Komodos is habitat loss and climate change. Their home is already restricted to a few small islands, and as more and more habitat is lost through urbanisation and rising sea levels, they're getting squeezed into less and less space. If we've learnt anything from this species spotlight, Komodo dragons don’t always get along with each other!

Epic Journeys: Komodo dragons don’t move around too much, in fact, most don't leave the valley in which they were born. They are certainly capable of long-distance travel, however. It just turns out that Komodo dragons are big homebodies and even if they are moved to a different part of the island, they will make their way back home.

Glow-up: A female dragon will lay around 15-30 eggs in a deep nest hole, which develop for 8-9 months before baby dragons hatch and are ready to face the world all on their own. One of the main threats to young dragons is larger dragons, so they actually spend the first 3 or 4 years of their lives living in trees, feeding on eggs, insects, reptiles, and small mammals, out of reach of any wandering adults. As they grow, they spend less and less time in the trees, until it's time to fully embrace ground living. In fact, they grow continually throughout their lives, and considering that they can live for over 30 years might help explain how they get so big!

Facts: As if these enormous warriors weren't metal enough, recent research has shown that they literally have teeth forged in iron. Their array of razor-sharp, serrated teeth are tipped with concentrated layers of iron in several places to keep them sharp and allow them to tear through flesh effortlessly.

Who are they in the friendship group: Big, powerful, hungry, and someone you wouldn't want to mess with.