All animals → Komodo Dragon

Komodo Dragon

Varanus komodoensis · medium

The Komodo dragon is the largest lizard alive, reaching three metres and comfortably outweighing an adult person. It is also an unusually effective predator for a reptile: fast over short distances, an able swimmer, and equipped with serrated teeth that open wounds a victim struggles to recover from.

How those wounds kill was long misunderstood. The old account held that septic bacteria in the dragon's mouth caused fatal infection. The better-supported explanation is venom — glands in the lower jaw release compounds that lower blood pressure and interfere with clotting, so prey weakens rather than becoming infected. Large kills are typically tracked until they fall.

Dragons are found on only a handful of islands in the Lesser Sunda chain, a distribution that reflects their origin: they are not island dwarfs but the survivors of a large-bodied lineage that once ranged more widely across the region.

Females can reproduce without a male through parthenogenesis, an ability that has produced unexpected clutches in zoos. Because of the sex-determination system involved, those offspring are all male — useful for founding a population from a single stranded female, and a striking piece of biology for an animal already unusual in most respects.

Where it lives

Worml lists the komodo dragon as native to Indonesia. Its habitat is tropical savanna and monsoon forest.

Ranges here are reduced to whole countries for playability and exclude introduced populations — see about the data for what that simplification leaves out.

In the game

Komodo Dragon is rated medium. To solve the round you need to name the single country it lives in. How scoring works →

Play today's puzzle →