KOMODO DRAGON 
Greatest of lizards, the heavy-set, twelve-foot Komodo dragon can kill 
a deer or a small pig. After dismembering its victim by a violent shaking, 
the brown, two-hundred-and-fifty-pound monster bolts it in great chunks, 
licking its saw-toothed jaws with its long, yellowish tongue. Often several 
monitors will fight furiously among themselves for division of their prey, 
and if one of their number is wounded, the others may finish it off and 
devour it. 
In their more peaceful moments the dragons lie sprawled on a sand¬ 
bank, sunning themselves and staring vacantly into the void. At night they 
repair to a burrow dug under a rock or amid the tree roots in the side of 
a gulley. They are powerful, though clumsy, swimmers and sometimes take 
to the water in search of turtles. The young dragons are able to climb 
trees, this gift helping them to feed on birds’ eggs and occasional chicks. 
Though their thick, scaly skin is of no commercial use, these lizards 
were, until recently, extensively hunted and are wary in the presence of 
man. If possible, they run away, but when cornered they try to club their 
enemy with their thick tail. They are captured in specially built traps, 
baited with dead pigs, but are so powerful that they have been known 
to break through the bars and escape. 
Despite their ferocity in the wild state, they become quite docile in 
captivity. Captive Komodo dragons are fed once every five days, alternat¬ 
ing one dozen eggs and either two pigeons or a medium-sized chicken. 
The Komodo monitor was discovered in 1912 on the East Indian 
island of Komodo. Recently this island and two adjacent ones inhabited 
by dragons have been made game preserves by the Dutch government, and 
today the dragons once in danger of extinction are fairly numerous. 
NILE MONITOR 
Numbers of greenish-gray Nile monitors lie on an African riverbank, 
basking in the tropic sun. These eight-foot lizards are, with the exception 
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