KOMODO ISLAND
KOMODO ISLAND
Your Guide to Vacation AMAZING INDONESIA ( holiday travel guide )
Komodo is an Indonesian island home to approximately 2,000 people who are mostly descendants of former convicts once exiled here. The island which covers an area of 390km² is part of Komodo National Park and is especially known for its native Komodo
Komodo is one of the 17,508 islands that compose the Republic of Indonesia. The island is particularly notable as the habitat of the Komodo dragon,
the largest lizard on Earth, which is named for the island. Komodo
Island has a surface area of 390 square kilometres and a human
population of over two thousand. The people of the island are
descendants of former convicts who were exiled to the island and who have mixed with Bugis from Sulawesi. The people are primarily adherents of Islam but there are also Christian and Hindu congregations.
Komodo is part of the Lesser Sunda chain of islands and forms part of the Komodo National Park. In addition, the island is a popular destination for diving. Administratively, it is part of the East Nusa Tenggara province.
Komodo is part of the Lesser Sunda chain of islands and forms part of the Komodo National Park. It lies between the substantially larger neighboring islands Sumbawa to the west and Flores to the east. The island's surface area covers 390 square kilometres
The earliest stories of a dragon existing in the region circulated
widely and attracted considerable attention. But no one visited the
island to check the story until official interest was sparked in the
early 1910s by stories from Dutch sailors based in Flores in East Nusa Tenggara
about a mysterious creature. The creature was allegedly a dragon which
inhabited a small island in the Lesser Sunda Islands (the main island of
which is Flores).
The Dutch sailors reported that the creature measured up to seven
metres (twenty-three feet) in length with a large body and mouth which
constantly spat fire. Hearing the reports, Lieutenant Steyn van
Hensbroek, an official of the Dutch Colonial Administration in Flores,
planned a trip to Komodo Island. He armed himself, and accompanied by a
team of soldiers he landed on the island. After a few days, Hensbroek
managed to kill one of the lizards.
Van Hensbroek took the dragon to headquarters where measurements were
taken. It was approximately 2.1 metres (6.9 feet) long, with a shape
very similar to that of a lizard. More samples were then photographed by Peter A. Ouwens, the Director of the Zoological Museum and Botanical Gardens in Bogor, Java.
The records that Ouwens made are the first reliable documentation of
details about what is now called the Komodo dragon (or Komodo monitor).
Ouwens was keen to obtain additional samples. He recruited hunters
who killed two dragons measuring 3.1 metres and 3.35 metres as well as
capturing two pups, each measuring less than one metre. Ouwens carried
out studies on the samples and concluded that the komodo dragon was not a
flame-thrower but was a type of monitor lizard. Research results were published in 1912. Ouwens named the giant lizard Varanus komodoensis.
Realizing the significance of the dragons on Komodo Island as an
endangered species, the Dutch government issued a regulation on the
protection of the lizards on Komodo Island in 1915.
The komodo dragon became something of a living legend. In the decades
since the komodo was discovered, various scientific expeditions from a
range of countries have carried out field research on the dragons on
Komodo Island.
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