316 
Auffenberg 
Table 13. Sex and social spacing around carrion 
when equal or larger monitors were feeding.* 
Sex Distance from carrion (in m) 
0-2.0 
2.1-4.0 
4.1 + 
Males 
216 
206 
276 
Females 
79 
86 
71 
Totals 
295 
291 
346 
* Sex ratio is normally 3.6:1 (Auffenberg, MS). 
concerned. They are sometimes pursued, and 
they try desperately to escape. In the desert 
iguana. Carpenter (1961) noted that chased 
individuals often assumed a submissive pose, 
but this was never observed in Komodo 
monitors. If a small monitor stopped run- 
ning, the larger, chasing individual undoubt- 
edly would have attacked it. During the pres- 
ent study, two smaller monitors (1.44 m 
and 1.54 m total length) were attacked and 
killed without provocation by a resident male 
2.5 m long. A 2.3 m female severely lacere- 
ated a 1.8 m nonresident male that had tried 
to mount her, I noted many instances in 
which smaller individuals were bitten on the 
hindlegs, tail, and back. Escape plays an im- 
portant social role for small Komodo moni- 
tors. 
The less antagonistic the higher-ranking 
individuals are, the more active the feeding 
of the lower-ranking ones. The high-ranking 
monitor of a feeding group is normally 
tolerant of the movement of lower-ranking 
ones toward the food itself. The dominant 
normally fails to display its superiority, 
except passively by means of its large mass. 
The mere presence of a large individual at 
a feeding site elicits signs of social stress and 
submissive appeasement behavior in smaller 
ones. Large size confers special site and feed- 
ing privileges to certain individuals, and 
these are accepted and remain unchallenged 
by smaller ones. This situation is somewhat 
similar to that described in dogs and wolves 
(Schenkel, 1967). 
The open associations around carrion are 
thus based on a type of social situation in 
which individuals (particularly smaller ones) 
are anonymous as individuals, but regarded 
on the basis of their size as low-ranking in- 
dividuals. Large, high-ranking individuals 
are also probably anonymous to the smaller 
ones. Large residents are not anonymous to 
one another, since they apparently recognize 
individuals on the basis of both physical and 
chemical characteristics. This leads to a kind 
of relationship between resident individuals 
that is lacking between residents and non- 
residents. 
FEEDING BEHAVIOR 
Most medium to large monitor species are 
known to feed on both live and dead prey. 
The degree to which they are predators or 
scavengers depends on the species, age of the 
individual, hunger level, and the opportuni- 
ties presented. The same is true of the Ko- 
modo monitor, which may be characterized 
as a scavenger-predator type of carnivore. 
Scavenging 
During the first day after death, the vola- 
tile oils produced by the decomposition of a 
carcass are not produced in sufficient amount 
to attract any but the very closest lizards. In 
48 hours, however, the decay is sufficiently 
advanced that considerable scent is produced, 
and many monitors from over a large area 
begin to move toward the carcass. 
One important characteristic of the scent 
tracked by a monitor to a rotting carcass is 
that, while the chemical stimuli may vary in 
intensity, they lack directional properties. 
Also, regardless of its distance from a car- 
cass, a monitor cannot detect a scent unless 
there is an actual diffusion of volatile oils 
through the air. Thus, it is clear that the lo- 
cation of the carcass, its size, and the direc- 
tion of the wind are critical factors (Fig. 10). 
The greatest distance from which we have 
attracted lizards to a bait is approximately 8 
km. Under most natural circumstances this 
distance would not be greatly exceeded, be- 
cause a carcass produces only a finite quan- 
tity of volatile substances. 
