The real story
Islanders had always known the 'ora'. But Western science only heard about it around 1910, from a Dutch officer on Flores, and the species was formally described in 1912. Fossils show its lineage is much older: Komodo-dragon bones in Australia date back about four million years, and the species reached Flores at least 900,000 years ago.
A Komodo's bite is helped by venom glands in its lower jaw that disrupt blood clotting, which is how it brings down deer and buffalo. Females can even lay fertile eggs without a male, which was documented in British zoos in 2006. Today the dragons live only on Komodo, Rinca, Flores and a couple of tiny islands nearby, and the IUCN lists them as endangered because rising seas threaten their habitat.
