komodo final

The host of the Wildlife Wonders Podcast talks about Komodo dragons. They are large reptiles found in Indonesia. They are carnivorous and eat a variety of animals, including deer, rodents, and even their own young. They are efficient eaters and leave very little waste. Komodo dragons can grow up to 10 feet long and weigh around 154 pounds. They have powerful hunting skills and are patient when waiting for prey. They spend their nights in burrows and come out during the day to bask in the sun and hunt. They are mostly solitary but come together for mating and eating. They have venomous bites but typically wait for their prey to die before eating it. Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Wildlife Wonders Podcast. Hi, I'm your host, the one, the only, Seriana, back at it again with another episode on another Friday. This week we also have my mini host of Rock the Liberated Dragon chilling out in the background. We are talking about a lizard today, so he's like, why don't I make an appearance? But either way, before we get into it, I want to thank you, like always, each and every week for every one of y'all that tune in, that share my content, that share my podcast, that send feedback. I got someone that messaged me, I think it was last week, about how much they learn and they enjoy the podcast. And let me tell y'all, that means so much. Every little thing means so much. But either way, we're still doing this every other Friday and we talked about a mammal last week. We talked about the panda bear. So this week, we're going to talk about the reptiles. And this reptile in particular, I'm so excited to tell y'all about because like I know a little bit about them, but not all of how crazy interesting they are. So I'm excited to share that with y'all. I'm excited to, y'all seem to really like reptiles next to birds. I don't know what it is about those two groups, but I'm excited to bring something that I've gotten feedback and people say they want to hear more about reptiles. So here we go. Also, if you haven't already, please like and follow my Instagram page, like content, follow, message me. That is Wildlife Wonders with an S, podcast, all one word. You can find me on Instagram. That is where you'll see content about animals we've talked about, about animals that we're going to talk about. You'll see engaging posts, reels, and if you have any questions or want to give feedback, you can reach out there. Also, don't forget to go to the YouTube page and Wildlife Wonders podcast, same thing. And you will find videos when they get uploaded, but there is one video in there if you haven't watched all about me and my background, if you're ever interested in that, but there will be videos about, well, I don't want to say about, there'll be these videos of the podcast episode, but you can actually see me talking, which will be a different experience for some people. And yeah, you can listen on Buzzsprout, Spotify, Apple Music, and all where you get your favorite podcasts is where you'll find this podcast because we are one of your favorites. But without further ado, we're going to get right into it. We are talking about Komodo dragons this week, you guys, Komodo dragons, they are reptiles. Really, really big reptiles that can be found in Indonesia, specifically in the Indonesian islands. There are a few such as Rintaja, Flores, I don't know if I'm pronouncing those right, but there's a few out there. I think there's about four or five that can be found on, and one of those are also Komodo Island has the name Komodo dragons. So that's where you can find them. They're usually in the Savannah forest, but they can be found all over the islands from the beaches to the ridgetop. So it's not really one place that they sit at, but you would not really see them outside of Indonesia unless someone brought them here illegally as a pet, or possibly of course in zoos. But these cool lizards, oh my goodness, you guys, they're carnivorous, right? But they're like top predator carnivorous, so it's not much that they don't eat. They eat any type of meat. They're usually, I would consider them more like they bite alive prey, but they usually don't eat them until they're about to die or they just died. So I would say they're kind of like on the scavenger side, like vultures, but they scavenge for carcasses and stalk animals in any size. They can take down small rodents, large water buffalo, wild pigs, other lizards, other insects. It's crazy. It's not much that they can't take down. They're just like top dogs of the island. But the most common thing that they eat are deer. There are specific deers that are there that they eat. They can also eat monkeys, goats, like I said, rodents. On another side, as sad as it is, they also eat their own, they're cannibalistic. So they typically won't eat another adult. They are venomous, but for whatever reason, their venom can't hurt another Komodo dragon, but they will eat their young. So those, they find another young, small Komodo dragon, they will eat their own, but they don't typically eat their own adult size, just the small ones. Now when I say they eat everything, they eat just about everything. But along with that, they're really efficient in their food. They only leave about 12% of their prey. That means they eat hooves, they eat intestines, they eat the hide, they eat the skin. They eat just about everything. They said no food left behind. They will not waste. They had a black farm, okay? But I thought that was really interesting. Not only that they eat their top predators, but they don't really leave anything behind. They gulf down their food. Their mouth can open very wide, so they can eat chunks and chunks of their food. And I think it says somewhere within like a minute and a half, they can eat a whole prey. Yeah, it's crazy wild. But that's a little bit about their diet. It's a little bit of everything under the sun that they can eat. There's not much, there's more that they can eat than they can't eat. Now you're saying, hey, these animals are taking down boars. They're taking down water buffalo. They're taking down other lizards and deer like, how big are they? They have to be pretty big if they're taking down these huge animals. Well, you guys, they can get up to 154 pounds on average, so they're like 135, but they can get up to 154 pounds. And they are about 100, not 100, they're about 10 feet long. Could you imagine something 10 feet stalky build and around 134 pounds running towards you? Terrifying. Granted, some dogs can get 134, but not 10 feet long, okay, from the tail to their head. The males are usually larger and bulkier, but sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between males and females. And there's not much sexual dimorphism, which means there's not much difference in characteristics as far as their features between the males and females. With the adults, they all have long tails. They're strong. They're very agile. Their tongues are yellow and like a little bit forked. They have really sharp teeth. Most of the adults are stone color and they have very large scales. The juveniles, which are the children, are usually more colorful. They usually have more patterns. They also, like I said, their jaws can open extremely wide and their stomachs can expand, so they can consume a lot more than the size of their body. Honestly, I think that's pretty cool and I wish my stomach could expand sometimes because I like good food, but nonetheless, it's wild. Now, I went over their eating, their food, and I went over their characteristics as far as how big and bulky they are and what makes them so unique. But how does that go into play with their behavior? How does that affect how they move and what they do during the day? Well, they live the life of leisure and luxury. They sleep. Most of them sleep all night in their burrows and then they come out during the day. They love to bask in the sun. A lot of reptiles love to bask in the sun and get their heat. They go hunt. They come back and take a nap. Life is good. They may do some other activity, depending on what time of the year it is, and then they go back to their burrows and they sleep for the night. They are very, very, very powerful hunters. They have an amazing sense of smell to detect their food. They put their tongues out. It's to sample the air, I guess, let's know when something is dying nearby. They can spend hours waiting for a meal. They are very patient. They know they're about to get this huge deer that comes on this trail. They're going to wait and take their time and then they're going to strike. Although they can run extremely, extremely, extremely fast. They can go up to 12.4 miles per hour. So if they wanted to run for their meal, they could. But why do that? Why do extra work when it can come to you? That's like getting meal service at a hotel. Why go out and buy food when someone can bring it to you? So they're also mostly solitary. They do come together for mating and they do come together for eating. Sometimes when they take down a prey, when it finally dies, there are a bunch of them will come and eat on that prey. Now, the thing is about that, when they are venomous, when they bite their prey, the venom and the bacteria is injected into their prey. But the funny thing is a lot of times when they bite or attack their prey, they do not eat it right then. For most times, it could take a few days sometimes for the prey to die. For some, I guess, younger day or smaller prey could take a mere hours. But anywhere from a mere hours to a few days. Like I said, they're patient, you guys. So what will happen is they'll attack the prey. The prey will go off, get all groggy, immobile, whatever the case. Because the venom is running through their body, okay? And then so when they take off, they leave, whatever the case may be. What then happens is the Komodo dragon either waits till it falls dead and then uses this great sense of smell. It does also have some pretty good vision when it's lit outside, not in a dim light. But they will use their senses and they will go find that prey that has now died and then eat on it. Or it will be a little before they're dying and they're immobile and they're pretty much dying. Then they'll find the prey and eat on it. But nine times out of 10, when they're attacking it, they're not going to eat it right then when it's still moving, trying to get away, whatever the case may be. They usually like it a little bit right then, if that makes sense. So that is really a unique trait about them. And that's not always the case with a lot of reptiles. Like snakes, a lot of snakes, a lot of lizards and stuff. They'll buy it, they'll eat it, then they're not going to wait for it. Versus this animal wants the animals more well done, I guess. So I briefly touched on mating and how mating is really only the time they come together other than eating. Now, mating goes a little bit like this. During mating time, the male and the female, they come together. The male licks the back of the female and says, Hmm, are you ready to mate? Am I interested in you? The female, if she has been interested, she will lick him back. We can do this, this could work. We might be some parents. And then mating occurs. Now, there can also be fights over females between males. They'll get up on their high legs, they'll attack. Usually it ends with one of the males running away. Hey, I'm done. You won, you can have the girl. Or it ends up with one of the males immobile. In that sense, I'm not really sure they took it by the male dies, or the male gets killed, or they're just so injured that they're not moving. Either way, one party is going to lose. They're not both going to get the girls. This happens with a lot of species, but it's very, very aggressive. It looks very prehistoric if you ever see the two fighting. But that's kind of how that goes. But when they do mate, females lay about 30 eggs. It takes so much energy. The female will sometimes lay on the nest. She can also, usually after they're born, it's not seen that they do a whole lot of prenatal care after they're born. But 30 eggs is a lot. That being said, they do not lay eggs every year. It is exhausting. It is time consuming. When they do lay eggs, they put them in nests. And they're usually made by these chicken-like birds, or they make their own nests. It's usually twigs, really big nests. And when the eggs come out or the eggs hatch, they're usually around three to five ounces and 16 inches long. When they get up to about five years old, then they can start re-eating full-size diets. They're about six and a half feet around five years old, and then about 55 pounds. So the size of a medium dog is where they're at at five years old. Like, imagine you're a five-year-old in kindergarten, the size of a medium dog. That runs. That runs really fast. So that's kind of where they are. A lot of times with the earlier years, they'd always make it to five years old. Because like I said before, this species is cannibalistic. Also, a lot of predators come... The predators that are able to come after Komodo dragons come after the young ones. They do not come after the adults. So a lot of times they might not even make it to that age, because they get eaten by their own, or they get eaten by predators. So that is something to consider. As far as predators, like I said, they're the top dog of the island. No one's touching them. But for the kids, the juveniles, they can be eaten by feral dogs, other Komodo dragons, wild boars, which is like a pig, the vet cat, which is a type of cat there, snakes, and other, I guess, other carnivorous animals on the island, but that are the main ones. It's not often that you will see a Komodo dragon, a big one, get taken down by something else. So this is mostly for the juveniles. They live about 30 years in the wild. This is a hypothesis. Scientists and researchers are still trying to figure out for sure if that's the average, but that's what I could find. It's about 30 years. I'm not sure how long in captivity. Of course, they're still fed well, but they're not given all the opportunity to mate and hunt and stuff like they are there because they don't usually have predators, which is what usually affects animals in the wild, but in the wild, around 30 years. And their conservation status falls between vulnerable and endangered. I had a hard time determining which one. For most things, they said endangered. For some, it said vulnerable. I think part of it is because the breeding season is not consistent, especially in the hot months. Females do not lay eggs as much, I guess, because it's not as good for the eggs and they don't make it because it's so hot. I think that's why it kind of fluctuates between vulnerable and endangered. One of the reasons is because they don't always like some eggs. Some seasons, they may lay more eggs or more females may lay eggs than others. The other thing to think about is that Komodo dragons, they have been hunted, but for the most part, their population decline is because their prey are being hunted. They eat a lot of meat under the sun, but if those prey are not available, how are they going to get the nutrients and food they need to survive? Okay, so there's poaching of deer, which is their main prey. There's also poaching of boars and buffaloes, which is also their prey. When you're taking away the animal's main prey, we talked about the food chain before. If you take away something in the middle of the food chain, it affects the stuff at the top and affects the stuff at the bottom. If you take away the stuff at the top of the food chain, then the prey will grow in abundance and it could mess up the whole rest of the cycle for all the other animals that rely on that animal getting eaten by a Komodo dragon. The other thing that I found that sometimes what happens is people will poison or put poison or killer on dead prey because they're trying to ward off coyotes and other animals, but in turn, what happens, of course, the Komodo dragon has no way of knowing that. So what happens is they'll eat the prey and then they'll end up getting a poison in them or dying or whatever the case may be. But that is all about the conservation status and we have made it to the end of the episode. The fun facts. I have three for you. I'm going to throw in a bonus one, but I've already said so many fun facts about this animal. How could it get any better? But wait, there's more. First fun fact, when this animal is threatened, they can throw up food in order to run faster. Because like I said before, they eat a lot and their stomachs expand, so they can throw their contents to kind of decrease their weight so they're able to move faster. So that's one. Throw up and run. Two, they are the largest and heaviest lizard in the world as of today, and they're one of the few lizards with the venomous bites. There's not a lot of lizards out there that have venomous bites, which kills their prey. Pretty cool. I mean, they said Komodo dragons also from prehistoric times. There's a whole history there, but if you want to look up that and get back to me or message me, you can, if you want to talk about it. Three, females, the males might not always be available, or the females might not want to be bothered with the males, whatever the case may be. But females can actually produce asexually through parthenogenesis, and usually plants do this, usually invertebrates do this, but these lizards can reproduce asexually. So they are I-N-D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-T, do you know what that means? Because they don't need a male to produce. It's great to have one, but they don't need one. So that is a third fact. And my bonus fact of the day, which is something that's nasty, but it's also cool. The female, not the females, the juveniles, like I said before, get eaten often. So in order to avoid getting eaten, they sometimes roll in poop, so that the adult Komodo dragons will not eat them, because who wants to eat poop-covered animals? Not I, not them. So, and also like I said, they have a great sense of smell, so that kind of lets adult Komodo dragons as ill. This smells disgusting. I don't want any bacteria in my mouth. I just ate something. No, no, no, no. They're not eating low-class food like that. So it kind of gets a lot of the prey out of being eaten, because they have poop on them. So they often roll in poop for protection. Either way, we have come to the end of the episode. Thank you once again for tuning in. We will be back in two weeks. So every other Friday, I'll see you for the next episode. If you're trying to get in touch or keep watching episodes, you found me here on Buzzsprout or Spotify, Apple Music, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And I will see you next time. Bye.