Dragon Week: Oh No, Komodo

Fire-breathing mythical beasts are all well and good, but we happen to share a planet with a real dragon that is just as formidable as any creature of fiction: the Komodo Dragon.
Found on a handful of Indonesian islands, Komodos are the world’s heaviest lizards, and can grow up to ten feet long and a weight of over 200 pounds.
They mostly enjoy carrion (yum!) but don’t seem to mind helping living things make the transition to carrion a little ahead of schedule. They’ve got extremely flexible jaws and have no problem at all taking down and consuming large prey like boars, goats, deer and Sharon Stone’s ex-hsuband.
Once a Komodo Dragon fancies you for dinner it’s hard to get away. They can run up to eleven miles an hour and can climb trees. Don’t worry, they’ll come to you. Even if you manage to fight off a hungry Komodo, you might still die of your wounds. Their mouths are chock full of bacteria and, without medical care, you’ll probably die of your wounds. Oh, and bonus: recent scientific research revealed that the presence of poison glands, too. MEDIC!!!!
Oh, and just like their fantasy counterparts, Komodo Dragons are total b*st*rds. According to Wikipedia, they’ve been known to startle pregnant deer so they can (warning: you can’t unread what you’re about to read…) cause them to miscarriage, giving the Dragon a tasty snack. You’d think that nature would make up for this by giving Komodo Dragons a low birth rate of their own, but nope, they can reproduce parthenogenically. Say what? Yep, under certain circumstances a female Komodo Dragon can lay a clutch of fertilized eggs – all male – all by her lonesome.