Goldstein tried calling several zoos with captive dragons. Fortunately, three zoos in Los Angeles, Honolulu and Houston were more cooperative, and the team managed to swab the mouths of 10 adults and 6 hatchlings. They found… nothing special. All the microbes they found were common in the skin and guts of their recent meals.
There were no virulent species at all, and certainly nothing capable of causing a quick, fatal infection. This is another nail in the coffin to the idea of them using bacteria as a weapon.
Of course, you might argue that wild dragons might harbour deadlier bacteria. If wild dragons are truly using bacteria as weapons, the captive ones should at the very least have some way of encouraging bacteria to grow in their mouths. Their mouths were not dramatically different from the mouth of any other captive carnivore.
In , they found a wide range of bacteria in the saliva of 26 wild dragons and 13 captive ones, including 54 disease-causing pathogens. When they injected the saliva into mice, many of them died and their blood was rich in one particular microbe— Pasteurella multocida.
But Fry thinks the study is laughable. And despite making a big deal of Pasteurella, they only found it in 2 of their 39 dragons. Goldstein never saw it in his captive ones. And worst of all, no single species of microbe has ever been consistently identified in all dragons. The only remaining lifeline for the bacteria-as-venom hypothesis, says Tyrrell, is that the team only identified the bacteria that they could grow in laboratory cultures.
When the dragons tackle natural prey—medium-sized mammals like deer or pigs—the victims die very quickly from blood loss. But water buffalos are a different story. These creatures were introduced to Komodo by humans.
Instead, the buffalos seek refuge in rank water holes, stagnant and contaminated with their own faeces. In this microbial wonderland, their wounds soon become infected.
Anaerobic and aerobic bacteriology of the saliva and gingiva from 16 captive komodo dragons varanus komodoensis : New implications for the "Bacteria as Venom" model. When Gerong grew up, the story goes, he met a fierce-looking beast in the forest. But just as he was about to spear it, his mother appeared, revealing to him that the two were brother and sister. Several dragons lingered nearby, drawn by the rancid smell of fish drying on bamboo mats beneath the blazing sun.
Also strolling by were dozens of goats and chickens. Amin and others say the dragons are hungry partly because of a policy that prohibits villagers from feeding them. Villagers recently sought permission to feed wild boar to the Komodos several times a year, but park officials say that won't happen.
The attack that first put villagers on alert occurred two years ago, when 8-year-old Mansyur was mauled to death while defecating in the bushes behind his wooden hut.
People have since asked for a 6-foot-high 2-meter concrete wall to be built around their villages, but that idea, too, has been rejected. The head of the park, Tamen Sitorus, said: "It's a strange request. You can't build a fence like that inside a national park! Residents have made a makeshift barrier out of trees and broken branches, but they complain it's too easy for the animals to break through.
Eventually we were able to chase it up a hill by throwing rocks and yelling 'Hoohh Hoohh. Then, just two months ago, year-old fisherman Muhamad Anwar was killed when he stepped on a lizard in the grass as he was heading to a field to pick fruit from a sugar tree. Gone are the days of goofing around with the lizards, poking their tails, hugging their backs and running in front of them, pretending they're being chased, said Muhamad Saleh, who has worked with the animals since Then, repeating a famous line by Indonesia's most renowned poet, he adds: "I want to live for another thousand of years.
We'll notify you here with news about. They can take down a kilogram Rusa deer, and kill a full-grown human. For decades, wildlife documentaries have promoted the idea that Komodo dragons owe their success as predators to toxic bacteria in their saliva — a claim bolstered by a study reporting deaths among lab mice injected with their saliva.
The finding was confirmed when the team surgically removed the glands from a terminally ill Komodo at Singapore Zoo.
Genetic and chemical analysis revealed a large array of venomous substances — including those that prevent blood clotting and widen blood vessels. These would cause blood pressure to plummet, potentially inducing shock, if injected into a mammal. It lowers blood pressure, and stops blood clotting.
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