Why are they called dragons?
Why do Komodo dragons eat their babies?
It's quite lovely of somebody
to think that they might be hugging.
People are asking these questions, but even the scientists didn't know.
I'm here to answer the most searched questions about Komodo
dragons. Why are they called dragons?
That would be a common one.
Why? It's quite cool.
I'm glad they're called dragons.
I think Komodo lizard doesn't sound quite as grand and spectacular.
So the first people that ever saw Komodo dragons
looked at them and thought what everybody else thinks when they first see a Komodo dragon, that is awesome.
And they're not quite the same as a mythical dragon.
They don't breathe fire.
They don't fly. So unlike any other lizard in the world, that they almost deserve their own
dragon title and I don't think anybody thinks they don't deserve that title of Dragon.
Do Komodo dragons eat people?
Now that's the common one.
I expected to see that one, really,
I'd almost say no.
Very rarely do people get attacked by Komodo dragons.
Some people living on the villages near the dragons, particularly on Komodo, it is inhabited by
people just living their lives, quite incredible to imagine, we couldn't quite comprehend that
on your doorstep is the largest lizard in the world, and they probably think it's as normal as a seagull
on the beach here in England.
But to answer the question, do they eat people?
Is not really the case.
Dragons have many animals on the menu.
Many, many they'll take anything,
but it's not like dragons are hunting people down in the villages and eating them up.
Do Komodo dragons have venom?
That's that's a good question.
It's one that's sort of definitely asked of me quite a lot working with dragons.
So before, it was understood by scientists that they had bacteria and it was in the saliva,
and that was what gave them that sort of nasty bite.
In more recent years, it was discovered that
they have a venom gland that's kind of adapted, it's a modified saliva gland, if anything,
and it does ooze through the gum line just like saliva would.
But Komodo dragons venom is quite specific.
It's actually an anticoagulant, so it means it thins the blood.
It keeps the blood from clotting.
The idea being a Komodo dragon's idea for hunting is to run at a prey item, bite it and lacerate
it really nastily
and the venom will cause increased bleeding, and it will flow the blood
much quicker and cause the animal to die of blood loss, really.
It's pretty cool that a Komodo dragon is not just cool enough as it is,
it has venom. I find venom to be one of the most, the biggest marvels of nature, really.
You know, chemists can can make different sort of chemical reactions based by mixing different chemicals
together and they're doing this with a very high intellect.
But a Komodo dragon is born with a gland.
in its mouth with this substance that we call venom already there
nature's way of hunting and killing their food.
Why do Komodo dragons eat their babies?
That's yeah, not not a nice thing to do for an animal, really.
You don't think of any animal eating its own babies and thinking, Oh, that's kind of gross.
I suppose the logic is that only the strongest dragons survive.
So, yeah, Komodo dragons eat their babies.
Why do Komodo dragons hug?
Erm because they're very affectionate, they're very lovely.
It's quite lovely of somebody to think that they might be hugging, but they're doing quite the opposite.
They're actually fighting.
So the only time they will do that move, is in breeding season,
when the males are kind of wrestling each other to compete for females.
And the dragons will go up on chest to chest,
Battle it out, battle it out, and one of them will come out the winner.
So that's what they're doing.
Not hugging, wrestling.
Are Komodo dragons endangered?
They are endangered.
The main reason is actually climate change.
So they are on an island, Komodos and obviously with climate change comes rising water levels
and it reduces their habitat.
I think I hope that it brings a lot of alarm bells with people because
I spent most of this time answering questions about how cool and how incredible a
Komodo dragon is.
If they went extinct and people saw pictures of them they'd be like, Wow, God, I can't believe they used to
live on planet Earth.
I can't believe we could see those in the wild.
They were an animal that existed in our time,
not a prehistoric animal that we see in books and pictures.
And to lose them would be a tragedy.
My favourite thing about Komodo dragons, how unique they are, I think?
There's something that draws you to them.
There's some, some sort of mystique about them.
They're very, very impressive, an animal that's capable of taking down a large deer or buffalo.
Has has ultimate respect from me.
I like the fact that people are searching about dragons
because it kind of all these questions, they kind of show my point that a
Komodo dragon is a mysterious animal
that just, it gets people's minds thinking.
So I don't think any of the questions are particularly stupid.
I think, you know, no worries there for people.
You know, you've done all right. I'm kind of glad that you've wanted to kind of
take that curiosity further
and learn a bit more about Komodo dragon.
But it's not overly surprising, like I said,
when you've got such a charismatic, incredible animal, but to be fair, people are
asking these questions,
but even the scientists didn't know until relatively recently that they were venomous,
you know, that wasn't known.
So all these questions were unanswered for a long time.
And now the scientists get to know, and now hopefully, the general public will get to understand
and learn more about Komodo dragons because they will learn that they are really, really special.