ƥRG ANMDR Ś FTR DWOK@HMR V@SBGHMF SGD dragon eat. “Fish bones are like peanuts to dragons.”
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INTO THE SAVANNAH For the really wild dragons we have to trek inland, through the quiet woodland and into the hot savannah. The trail is faint. We peer left, right, and up. The dragons are hard to spot: their coloring echoed in the rock, earth, and shadows. Brittle leaves crackle underfoot, brittle twigs snap. Walking bare-legged across an island inhabited by the largest venomous animal on the planet, it’s time to cut to the chase.
Venture | Feb/Mar 2013
“What should we do if one attacks?” FTR RG@JDR GHR ENQJDC RS@Ƥ ř4RD the crook of your stick to catch it by the neck or armpit,” he says. I consider my defenses. I have a cheese sandwich, a camera, and some sunscreen. “Alternatively,” Agus suggests, “You could run zigzag, stand still, or climb a tree.” Dragons can run up to 18 kilometers an hour, but not far and only in straight lines. Stand still? “It’s the motion which excites the chase,” Agus explains. A DRAGON NEST How does a dragon like its eggs? Fowl and underground. In the woodland
we stop at a burrow with a half-meter wide entrance. It began as the nest of an orange-footed fowl, dug with their characteristically large feet. The mother fowl lays her eggs. The female Komodo dragon, using her pale forked tongue, detects the scent of the eggs, discovers the burrow, eats the eggs, and then lays her own 15-30 dragon eggs in the fowl’s nest. Baby dragons hatch between March and May and measure 30 centimeters when they crack through their shells. They quickly climb into the trees where they live for around four years to avoid being eaten by their own kind. Mature