Komodo Dragon


I wonder how they managed to handle that animal during the filming, I would think it would be difficult to control.

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It was not a Komodo Dragon, it was a Nile Monitor. If raised by people and handled frequently they can be pretty tame. There is no way to tame a Komodo Dragon and they get over 10 feet long with deadly bacteria in their bites.

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Ah, gotcha. Thanks for the info :)

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OH GOD, Yes! Definitely a monitor. Komodo's aren't just big with that notorious, lethal bite - they are extremely aggressive. I watched one chase a grown man for the better part of an hour without rest, which is very unusual for a reptile as they aren't very good with long stretches of sustained energy burn. Take an alligator for instance, great for short and scary bursts of speed and ferocity, but in no time you can turn them over and rub their belly because they're completely out of gas. Not the Komodo, they just keep on coming until they inflict their bite and then they wait for you to die so they can eat you, and they eat pretty much anything. Both actors in the film would have been killed if left with a loose Komodo in a vehicle and all those people in the mall would have been in God's hands with one running loose...and those poor kids in the pool. Jesus.

Factoid for you folks, the Komodo's mouth bacteria have been sampled and tested against a human's and we're actually a very dangerous bite species ourselves. They do have more stuff and more nasty stuff, but it's not the bacteria that does the victim in. A terminally ill Komodo was recently examined in Australia and it's now known that it's not bacteria that the Komodo uses, but a venom gland similar to a snake! Visit World Zoo Today dot com and they have the story. Neat stuff!

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It wasn't a Nile Monitor (they hav really stubby snouts, like most African monitor lizards http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nile_monitor) the one in the movie was a Water Monitor/Salvator Monitor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_monitor

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Probably had a trainer on the set, as they usually do when they are dealing with animals.

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