WOW!!! Look at this huge Komodo Dragon!!!
English Article: A study has found that the world’s largest living lizard species, the Komodo dragon, most likely evolved in Australia and dispersed westward to its current home in Indonesia.
In the past, researchers had suggested the Komodo dragon (Varanus komodoensis) developed from a smaller ancestor isolated on the Indonesian islands, evolving its large size as a response to lack of competition from other predators or as a specialist hunter of pygmy elephants known as Stegodon. However, over the past three years, an international team of scientists unearthed numerous fossils from eastern Australia dated from 300,000 years ago to roughly 4 million years ago that they now know belong to the Komodo dragon.
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| Picture of Megalania |
The researchers said the ancestor of the Komodo dragon most likely evolved in Australia and spread westward, reaching the Indonesian island of Flores by 900,000 years ago. Comparisons between fossils and living Komodo dragons on Flores show that the lizard's body size has remained relatively stable since then.
All these huge lizards were once common in Australasia for more than 3.8 million years, having evolved alongside large mammalian carnivores, such as Thylacoleo, the so-called 'marsupial lion.' The Komodo dragon is the last of these giants, but within the last 2,000 years, their populations have diminished severely, most likely due to humans, and they are now vulnerable to extinction, living now on just a few isolated islands in eastern Indonesia, between Java and Australia.
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| Dragón de Komodo (Varanus komodoensis) |
Artículo en Español:
Un estudio a demostrado que el lagarto vivo más grande del Mundo, el dragón de Komodo, probablemente evolucionó en Australia y se dispersó hacia el oeste a su actual hábitat en Indonesia.
En el pasado, los investigadores habían sugerido que el dragón de Komodo (Varanus komodoensis), se desarrolladó a partir de un pequeño ancestro aislado en las islas
