Originally published at: How to care for your Komodo Dragon | Boing Boing
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A good time to share that more people should know about Joan Proctor.
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Step 1: Don’t be Phil Bronstein.
Step 2: Procure chainmail.
I’m surprised that they are so short lived – usually lizard metabolisms, particularly in tropical climates, suggest very long life spans.
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It seems that “in human care” is the important part in the sentence. I tried to Googling and I did find out that they do live a lot longer in their natural habitat. But rather surprisingly males appear to outlive females by a wide margin.
“The researchers found that male Komodo dragons lived an average of 60 years; female life expectancy topped out at 32. In the eight years of tracking and testing the animals, the researchers were never able to find a female 33 years or older. Although Komodo dragons are cannibalistic (one reason why females have to defend their nests), the researchers found that after the lizards grew large enough to defend themselves the primary cause of death was natural aging.”
I found this from here.
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Sounds like he’s got better healthcare than a lot of Americans. I bet laser arthritis therapy would be roundly denied by many insurance plans.
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Fascinating. I wonder if they just get fed too much in captivity.
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It could also be the lack of exercise. In the nature they have to wander quite a lot to find their prey. Their hunting method for large prey is also pretty brutal and requires them to follow their prey until it succumbs to the biting injuries and/or blood poisoning. Scavenging works also but it requires again wandering around their habitat.
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No kimono?
Rubbish advice.
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I will love him and feed him and call him George.
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George will bite you and follow you around for a week until you collapse from blood poisoning, then he will eat you while you’re still alive.
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I like George.
George the Komodo dragon lives by the sea …
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