An island enveloped in mist receives the new day, south of the continent of Asia.
This is just one of the over 20,000 islands stretching from Asia to Australia,
but in its interior it holds zoological mysteries which have astonished scientists for generations.
When the first European explorers came to the Indonesia archipelago, at the start of the sixteenth century,
they could hardly believe their eyes: here, before them, lay a new world of impenetrable jungles and erupting volcanoes.
A world of darkness and mystery.
Nature seemed to have lost her senses in this distant land.
Here, they found plants that fed on animals, and fish able to remain out of the water, without perishing,
Each fresh discovery brought a new mystery.
Three hundred years later, at the start of the twentieth century,
a pilot whose plane had crashed into the sea managed to swim ashore on one of these islands.
When the rescue team managed to find him, the man appeared to have lost his senses.
Delirious, he claimed that the island was inhabited by gigantic lizards which, devoured the natives.
Without realising it, those men had ventured into the land of dragons.
During the glaciations of the Pleistocene era, the polar icecaps increased in size, and the level of the sea fell.
Some island remained isolated, while others became joined to the continent. Java was one of these.
Once the glaciation was over, the sea returned to its original level, and Java once more became an island, cut off from mainland Asia.
From that time on, its fauna and flora took different evolutionary roads from those of the continent.
Roads which would lead to the creation of legendary creatures.
Its isolation, and the inaccessibility of its jungles shrouded the island in mystery.
The rare visitors from the continent returned with strange stories telling of unfamiliar animals.
The tales spread, were modified and exaggerated, and by the time they reached distant Europe,
they had become fabulous legends of mythological creatures
Centuries later, when the European colonisers landed on the distant island of Java,
they discovered these strange creatures which had inspired the ancient legends.
Human beings already lived here in the Neolithic period, over 4,000 years ago. And their descendents live there still.
Over many generations, the local people learnt to live with the jungle and its mysterious inhabitants.
They introduced cattle rearing, cut down trees, planted crops and hunted.
Still today they retain a way of life and traditions similar to those witnessed by the first Westerners to arrive in these lands.
Knowledge was handed down from father to son through the oral tradition.
The new generations learnt from their elders which plants to cultivate and with which techniques,
which were the best pastures and which fish were edible.
Along with this knowledge, they also had to learn to fear their predators
and recognise the innumerable dangers of the jungles which surrounded them.
From them, the European explorers received the first descriptions of the fauna of the area.
The visitors’ lack of scientific knowledge would transform these explanations into fabulous tales.
It would seem the most fantastic creatures dwelled in the heart of the jungle.
The majority of these animals lived in the most extensive of the ecosystems of the island tropical rainforest.
The tree cover is so dense that in some parts barely 5% of the sunlight reaches the ground.
The darkness and the thick vegetation make it almost impossible to spot the animals.
The only signs of their presence are the sounds which fill the air.
It is impenetrable jungle, in which the trees acquire strange shapes, and animals remain hidden to the human eye.
The colonisers were in no doubt: this must be the dwelling place of those animals spoken of in legend.
At all levels of the jungle, the fauna seems invisible, but it is there.
Down on the ground, thousands of tiny animals clean the jungle of corpses and vegetable remains.
Their work is often overlooked, but it vital for the system.
The zoological order of insects is the most numerous in the rainforest.
It is also one of the least well-known: thousands of species living here have not yet been discovered or catalogued by man.
Much of the local fauna can be found up in the trees.
These crab-eating macaques are just one of the ten species of macaques that live in the archipelago.
There are 31 species of primates alone, of which 23 are endemic, that is, exclusive to these islands.
Isolation gave rise to many endemic species, and incredible biological diversity.
Here, we can find tropical rainforests, mangrove swamp, and savanna.
Each one has its own particular fauna and flora.
In some cases, the species are exclusive to the archipelago, or may be even be restricted to a single island.
On other occasions, they are varieties which can also be found in Asia or Australia,
the two continents with which the islands of Indonesia came into contact.
This is the case of the second largest bovine in the world, the banteng.
The banteng, weighing 900 kg. and almost 2 metres high, prefers the open spaces to the interior of the jungle.
There, they find pasture, and have greater possibilities of detecting potential enemies.
Their size is only surpassed by one other bovine, the Indian gaur,
which can weigh up to a tonne, and stands some 30 centimetres higher.
Groups of bantengs are composed of a number of females, led by a dominant male,
who constantly watches over his harem.
In the ancient past, they could be found throughout continental south-east Asia.
They were an important source of food for the local population, and are today domesticated on some islands.
The wild banteng, however, has been hunted intensively and now only survives in Burma, Thailand, Borneo, and here, in Java.
Unlike man, few predators would even attempt to fell a prey of this size.
Their main enemy lies hidden in the depths of the jungle, where it is virtually invisible.
It is the largest predator on the island, an animal feared and venerated by man since ancient times
the tiger.
Today the banteng almost never comes in contact with a tiger.
As a result of the intensive hunting they have been subjected to,
the population has shrunk to such an extent that, in Java, they are virtually certain to become extinct.
This same threat hangs over the largest inhabitant of these jungles.
It was precisely on this island, Java, that the first explorers found one of the most mysterious animals of the archipelago.
The natives described it as a being of prehistoric appearance, with a single horn, like that of the legendary unicorn.
The animal lived inside the jungle, which made it difficult to find.
For a while, the only proof of its existence were the local stories,
strange piles of excrement which appeared in different places within the jungle,
and tracks which on occasions were seen on the wet ground, beside vegetation which had clearly been bitten into.
The mysterious animal did, however, eventually surface.
The Javan rhinoceros is one of the rarest mammals on earth.
It is slightly smaller than the Indian rhinoceros, and the female either has a very small horn, or none at all.
This has proven to be a blessing, as they are entirely without value for the poachers.
Despite this, they are in serious danger.
At present, Java has the greatest number, but even here there are only 50 individuals.
The rhinoceros had barely stepped from the pages of legend, when it became in danger of extinction.
The rhinoceros is one of the species which arrived in the archipelago during the glaciations, then found themselves cut off.
With the rise in sea-level, only those animals or plants capable of crossing the water were able to reach the islands.
One of these colonised the muds of the estuaries, at the point where the fresh water of the rivers runs into the sea.
These trees form an impenetrable maze of roots and trunks. An intermediate ecosystem which is neither land nor sea.
Conditions here are not the most ideal: the mud is very acid, has little oxygen, and extreme levels of salt.
But the mangrove has the necessary mechanism to overcome these obstacles: its seeds.
The seeds of the mangrove are not only faced with these problems, but must also struggle against tides and currents.
In order to achieve this, they germinate on the tree itself, and develop a stem up to 40 cm long.
Only then do they break off.
If this liberation coincides with low tide, they will cling to the ground and be able to take root.
From then on, the challenge will be to overcome the lack of oxygen.
The trick is to grow long aerial roots, or create vertical tubes, the pneumatophores, which rise up like small breathing pipes.
This seed has fallen during high tide, but it will not die. Its mission is to float off, in search of new territories to colonise.
Below the mangroves, there lies another universe, a world which since ancient times has fascinated and terrified man.
The shallowness of the water, which made possible communication between these islands and the continent
during the Pleistocene era, now means the sea bed is able to receive light and heat.
The marine fauna and flora have here found conditions favourable to life,
and few places in the world can boast of such a profusion of forms.
Here, a single bay may contain twice as many species as the entire Caribbean.
In these submarine paradises, evolution has created beings so different from those of the surface that,
for many years, scientists were at a loss to explain.
This clown fish, for example, does not rub against a plant, but rather an anemone, an animal of the polyp family.
The anemone, with its stinging tentacles, protects the clown fish from its enemies.
The fish, in return, cleans its protector of parasites.
Long before science was able to study the symbiotic relationship between the clown fish and the anemone,
the sea was, for man, a place of countless mysteries. Its depths were unreachable and its fauna, in many case, unknown.
The lack of scientific information was compensated for by the imagination of man,
filling the ocean with marine unicorns, giant snakes and mermaids.
The stories told by the sailors passed from mouth to mouth, feeding people’s imaginations,
and given further credence by the numbers who dies at sea each year.
Some of the dangers lying hidden in the waters took the form of multi-coloured fish which possessed weapons capable of killing a man.
The members of the scorpaenidae family have poisonous barbs on their fins, to dissuade predators from any attempt to hunt them.
Some of these species, such as the lion fish, are clearly visible, but others camouflage themselves, blending in to the coral background.
Anyone who makes the mistake of bumping into them will die in just a few hours, never having identified what it was that had attacked them.
On other occasions, the danger came from much more familiar animals, the snakes.
Man’s primeval fear of snakes was immediately applied to its marine relatives, and in some cases quite rightly so.
The olive sea snake is not only swifter than any land serpent, but it also possesses the deadliest poison of any snake in the world.
As well as fearing the coral reef, man also admired it.
The clear lagoons of the Indian Ocean make for levels of visibility impossible in other seas.
On calm days, from the surface it was possible to observe the ecosystem unfolding just a few metres below.
Before man’s eyes appeared a paradise full of colours, and until then unimagined forms.
A world in which the fish shared their habitat with animals that looked like plants, such as the holothuroidea (sea cucumbers):
strange, gigantic worms which seem to expel their digestive system when they are threatened.
Beneath the surface of the water, man had discovered a world whose mysteries were greater
even than those of the depths of the Indonesian jungles.
Beyond the coral reef, lie the open waters of the ocean, one of the environments most feared by man since ancient times.
The sea bottom is lost in the dark depths, and all that can be seen is the so-called Great Blue, the immensity of the ocean.
This is a world almost without colour, dominated by the great sea predators, the territory of the most feared ocean animal, the shark.
Of all the species of shark in the seas, only a few attack man,
but that has been enough to earn them a reputation inspiring fear and panic.
Few people are able to tell the difference between these silky sharks and other species of shark, and if in doubt,
it is best to err on the side of caution, especially if you take into account that the warm waters of the Indian Ocean
are visited by white sharks, the most dangerous of all.
In this way, aware or not of their ignorance, men have always considered all sharks to be vicious assassins.
Above them, on the surface, the mangrove seed floats on its way.
Its chlorophyll means it can photosynthesise, and so remain alive for almost a year, even though it has germinated.
If, during this time, it reaches the fresh water of an estuary, it will run aground in the mud,
grow and create a new mangrove forest on another island of the archipelago.
And with it, new species of animal life also arrive.
One of these is scanning the surface through one of its natural periscopes.
There appears to be no danger. It’s time to come out.
It is a fiddler crab. It’s name comes from it’s enormous claws, almost equal in size as the rest of its body.
The mud of the mangrove swamps is a source of food.
To extract the nutritious substances it contains, the crab scoops it up with its claws, and transfers it to a special organ opposite its mouth.
These organs are equipped with fine hairs which filter out the food, and then place it in the mouth.
The mud left behind is accumulated in a small pellet, and then expelled as the crab moves.
The male can only use one of his claws.
The other is so big that it is useless for collecting mud. The females don’t have this problem
This outsized claw serves two basic functions: to mark his territory, and attract the females.
To do this, the males displays it, with energetic movements.
A rival!
When the female approaches his territory, the suitor tries to get close to her, and draw her into his burrow.
No success this time.
In the end, the females appears to have chosen the other candidate.
If so, they will remain together until they go to the male’s shelter,
where they will mate without being disturbed by the other suitors.
The mangrove forest is home to a number of species of fiddler crabs, but the females have no problem identifying potential mates.
Each species is of a different colour, and performs a different courting dance, which is just as well with so many suitors together.
The enormous number of crabs limits the size of their territories, and increases competition.
It is not rare to see two males at the border between their respective domains fighting for the same female.
With so many suitors together, it is not long before a fight breaks out.
During the mating season, these fierce clashes will be often repeated among all the species of crabs that live in the mangrove forest.
While the crabs get on with their courtship, a tiny animal emerges from the water, supporting itself on its fins.
It is a fish but, nonetheless, does not die from asphyxiation when it comes out onto dry land.
The mudskipper is one of the few species of fish in the world capable of living out of the water.
This amazing ability means it can feed on the tiny algae, crustaceans and worms which live among the mangroves.
And it comes out of the water not just to get food. Courtship also takes place on land.
The male shows off his dorsal fin to the females.
The problem is that the mudskippers are so small they can hardly be seen.
To compensate, they will have to jump up, or find a slight rise in the level of the mud.
As they don’t have legs, the mudskippers use their pectoral fins to propel themselves along.
The fins have acquired strong muscles, and even a joint half way along, reminiscent of the elbow of we land animals.
To breathe, they use a system similar to the crabs: they retain water in their gills.
When they ingest food, they have to expel this water, so the mudskippers constantly need to replenish their reserves.
This also keeps their skin wet, this is very important, because that is another way in which they absorb oxygen.
Among the thousands of islands that make up the archipelago, there is one which, despite being very small, is of extraordinary value.
The dangerous reefs which surround it, and its tiny size, meant that for centuries it went entirely unnoticed by the colonisers.
From its appearance, you would hardly suspect the mysteries it contains.
At the start of the twentieth century, the island suddenly became the focus of attention.
The rumour spread that its forests contained fauna which were very different from that which could be seen on its beaches.
In the interior lived terrible, unknown creatures.
The stories became increasingly frequent, and the Indonesian government decided to send a scientific expedition.
What they discovered was so amazing that, in just a few years, the island went from total obscurity to world-wide fame.
Within the different ecosystems, we will find different species of endemic fauna, as well as others introduced by man.
Crab-eating macaques and Sunda deer share the island with wild boar, pigs, goats and buffalo.
All of them, domesticated or wild, are potential prey of the great predator of the island, the animal the natives call “ora”
the dragon.
The Komodo dragon is the largest living lizard in the world. It can measure 3 metres in length, and weigh 70 kilos
Some zoologists believe it could be a subspecies of another large lizard which,
in the past, lived on the continent of Asia, in regions ruled over by the Chinese.
Perhaps that explains the importance of dragons in their traditions.
It’s sight and hearing are not very well-developed. To hunt, it relies on smell.
The dragon has picked up the scent of a deer. The hunt begins.
Every time it puts out its tongue, the particles carried in the air are trapped on its two tips.
It then places these tips against a special receptor, called Jacobson’s organ, located at the top of the mouth.
This analyses the particles and tells the dragon, not only of the presence of the deer, but also in which direction it can be found.
The deer also has a good sense of smell, and a change in the wind direction alerts it of the presence of the predator.
The dragon has lost the scent, but it continues to advance, all the time analysing the air.
Perhaps the wind will bring fresh news of its prey.
The deer is now beyond its reach, but the lizard does not give up.
There are many animals in the jungle, and at any time he may perceive the smell of other potential prey.
Little does he suspect there is one directly above him, watching in silence.
This one a very close relative.
It is a young dragon.
Such is the voracity of these animals that the adults do not hesitate to attack the young of the species.
To avoid being detected, these cover themselves in faeces to disguise their natural smell, and climb up into the trees,
where they will remain until the predator has moved off.
As long as they remain in the tree, they will be safe, even if they are detected, despite their olfactory camouflage.
The adults are too heavy to climb up into the tree after them.
After his failed attempt at hunting, the dragon heads towards the savanna, drawn by a familiar smell.
The open spaces are frequented by the large autochthonous herbivores, but also by the domestic cattle of the natives.
Both find here pasture and shoots on which to feed.
As payment for the use of the meadows, the inhabitants of Komodo leave the dead bodies of their cattle for the great predator.
The more deaths there are, the less likely it is the reptiles will collect the debt by attacking the live cattle.
On this occasion, it is a goat that has died. The wind carries the smell, and the dragon comes to collect its due.
He must begin to eat immediately. If he has found the corpse, then other dragons will not be far behind.
The first thing it will eat will be the entrails, which are the softest and easiest parts to eat.
Before he has had a chance to begin, a second, and even bigger lizard appears on the scene.
In very little time, the wind has carried the message to all the dragons in the area.
As if they had been summoned to a meeting, they all come together here in the clearing to take part in the banquet.
By the time the third guest arrives, the entrails have been devoured.
This is the prize for the first ones to discover the feast.
The body is ripped apart and peacefully shared out.
Surprisingly, they do not fight. Each one finds a space, and concentrates on the meal in front of them.
In just a few minutes, the goat has almost entirely disappeared.
The lizards will swallow the bones, the skin, and even the hooves.
The only thing left lying on the ground are the horns, a pool of blood, and claw marks,
the only sign that the lizards have accepted the payment of the natives.
Amid the frenzy, a new character appears in the clearing.
The pigs were also introduced into the island by man, and are also a feast much appreciated by the dragons.
Though that does not appear to worry our visitor.
Despite the proximity, no one attacks him.
The pig is faster than the lizards, and as long as it knows where they are, it will be safe.
The predators know this, and will not waste energy trying to hunt it down, when they know it is pointless.
All the islands on which humans have settled have been invaded by the animals they brought with them.
The different ecosystems have absorbed pigs, dogs or goats, which escaped from their human masters
and were able to adapt to life in the wild.
They are the most recent newcomers, and the latest victims of the Komodo dragon.
Man has lived alongside the giant lizards since time immemorial.
Over generations, children and adults who strayed from the settlements have disappeared in the jungle, leaving no trace.
After the initial anguish, people became resigned to this. It is the tribute they must pay to the dragons for allowing them to live on their island.
Today, about 2,500 people live on Komodo and Rinca, two of the four islands on which dragons are still exist.
For them, as for their ancestors, the mystery of Komodo is something entirely normal, which no longer surprises them.
But for the Europeans who came to these islands for the first time, it was the confirmation that they were indeed in a mythical land,
where dragons still terrorised man. The animals of their nightmares had come to life.
Some of these animals remained inactive during daylight hours.
This group of flying foxes is resting in the branches of the trees, waiting for nightfall.
They are the largest bats in the world but, despite their threatening appearance, they are inoffensive, because the flying foxes are fruit-eaters.
It stirs to life just as the day is ending, and the sun goes down.
With the arrival of night, the islands are transformed.
The species which remain inactive during the day now awake, the predators go hunting under the cover of darkness,
and the air is filled with sounds which still today inspire fear among the natives.
People remain in their huts, and no one leaves the village.
For a few hours, the islands return to their wild state, untamed by man.
Though they are a fisher people, the inhabitants of Komodo have transformed the ecosystem of the island.
Since man first came here, goats and water buffalo have grazed on the savanna.
The constant felling of trees for wood has cleared many of the forests which, in the past, covered these lands, and much of the islands is now savanna.
These changes directly affected the dragons.
Their main prey, the herbivores endemic, were reduced in numbers by the hunters and their trained dogs,
while the cattle devoured the pasture.
With the presence of man in its territory, and the decline of its natural prey, confrontation was inevitable.
The dragons began to hunt down the domestic cattle and came increasingly close to the human settlements.
As the ecosystems deteriorated, the pressure on the local inhabitants became increasingly great.
The natives, unaware that they were to blame, saw how each year there were more and more attacks.
The lizards seemed to collect their tribute ever more frequently.
The size of the prey is no problem for the lizards.
If they can’t kill it instantly, biting it will be enough. In their mouths, they have over 50 types of infectious bacteria,
and a single bite is sufficient for these to be transferred to the wound.
Within a week at most, the animal will die as a result of the infection.
When this happens, the dragons will find it by its smell, and quickly devour it.
A surprising example of planning for the future.
Neither the tough skin nor the bones are a problem for the powerful jaws of these lizards.
Anything which provides nutrition will be ingested.
A dragon can eat up to 70% of its body weight at a single sitting, thanks to its ability to swell its stomach.
A nine-year old child can be completely devoured by a single adult.
It is not surprising, therefore, that these creatures inspire profound terror among the natives of the island.
When they have almost finished, a newcomer joins the banquet.
It has detected the smell from several kilometres away, and is a little late in arriving.
Luckily, the dead animal was sufficiently large, and there is still food left for him.
Their ability to ingest enormous quantities of food at a time allows them to go for long periods without eating.
They will not find something to eat every day, but nature has given them a stomach able to compensate for this lack of regular meals.
If we take into account that the species which may have lived in China in the past was even larger,
the old legends of dragons demanding young virgins to calm their wrath do not seem so exaggerated.
From the size of their stomachs we can tell which ones are full.
After having ingested over 40 kg. of food each, they stumble off away from the group.
The others will shortly follow them. What they want now is a shady place in which to rest and digest.
Competition between the dragons and man has brought them to the verge of extinction.
Just four years after they were discovered, they were already a protected species but, despite this, numbers continue to fall.
It was only 31 years later, in 1936, that the government understood that protecting them
would be useless if they didn’t also conserve their natural habitat.
The islands on which they still lived were declared sanctuaries and their ecosystems protected.
Man finally seems to have understood the value of the jungles which contain plant species found nowhere else in the world,
the same jungles which gave rise to the most incredible legends.
The depths of these jungles are the final refuge of the animals which conferred on the islands of Indonesia an aura of mystery.
Species which, until very recently, have remained hidden from the sight of man,
and in some cases still today have been little studied by investigators from around the world.
The archipelago is, at one and the same time, myth and reality, the place where science and fantasy meet.
The movement of the continental plates created it.
The glaciations and the sea gave it life, and evolution and isolation have converted it into a legend.
Today, many of its mysteries have been revealed, but the interior of the islands still hides unknown creatures,
animals which perhaps today, just like three hundred years ago, we believe only exist in the imagination of our ancestors.