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The Komodo dragon is also sometimes known as the Komodo monitor or the Komodo Island monitor in scientific literature, [14] although these names are uncommon. To the natives of Komodo Island , it is referred to as ora , buaya darat ('land crocodile'), or biawak raksasa ('giant monitor').
Like snakes, monitor lizards have highly forked tongues that act as part of the "smell" sense, where the tips of the tongue carry molecules from the environment to sensory organs in the skull. The forked apparatus allows for these lizards to sense boundaries in the molecules they collect, almost smelling in "stereo". [24]
The vomeronasal organ (VNO), or Jacobson's organ, is the paired auxiliary olfactory (smell) sense organ located in the soft tissue of the nasal septum, in the nasal cavity just above the roof of the mouth (the hard palate) in various tetrapods. [1]
Like the Komodo dragon, the water monitor will often eat carrion, [2] [17] or rotten flesh. By eating this decaying flesh, the lizard provides benefits to the ecosystem by removing infectious elements, cleaning the environment. [18] They have a keen sense of smell and can smell a carcass from far away.
Mammalian prey typically consists of rodents and leporids; the Komodo dragon can kill prey as large as water buffalo. Dragons are prolific scavengers, and a single decaying carcass can attract several from 2 km (1.2 mi) away. A 50 kg (110 lb) dragon is capable of consuming a 31 kg (68 lb) carcass in 17 minutes. [42]
Komodo dragons are native to Indonesia and weigh around 80 kilograms (176 pounds) on average. They eat almost any kind of meat and are known as deadly predators. The lizards are native to Indonesia.
The Komodo dragon is significantly slower, reaching speeds of just 5–6 m/s (16–20 ft/s), although that is enough for it to chase goats and deers, which it mostly preys on. [15] Being the largest true monitor, Megalania is yet slower, with its estimated top speed no more than 3 m/s (9.8 ft/s). [16]
The Varanidae are a family of lizards in the superfamily Varanoidea and order Anguimorpha.The family, a group of carnivorous and frugivorous lizards, [1] includes the living genus Varanus and a number of extinct genera more closely related to Varanus than to the earless monitor lizard (Lanthanotus). [2]