24/03/2022
We are familiar with the story and fairy tale of Komodo. Have you ever questioned the scientific history of Komodo?
In the early 1910 a Dutch-based unit cluster reported that they saw a uniqe creature that they suspected of ‘dragons” in a small island in Flores island (then the Lesser Sunda Island). Lieutenant Jacques Karel Henri van Steyn van Hensbroek, a Dutch colonial administration official in the Flores region heard about this report and then planned a trip to see the creatures.
During his visit, he managed to kill the strange species and took a picture of it, which he then sent to Pieter Ouwens, then director of the Java Zoological Museum and Botanical Gardens in Boutenzorg (now Bogor). Pieter Ouwens realised that the this animal was not an ordinary lizard and was a new species that was new to science, he then published a first formal description of the animal, Varanus komodoensis.
The first formal and long-term study of Komodo dragons was started by herpetologist at the Florida Museum of Natural History, Walter Auffenberg and his assistant Putra Sastrawa. Their study resulted in the seminal work “The Behavioral Ecology of the Komodo Monitor”. Komodo currently can be found on the northern coast of Flores and the nearby islands of Komodo, Rinca and Gili Motang and Nusa Kode.
