🦎Komodo dragon

Varanus komodoensis Ouwens, 1912

The Komodo dragon, also known as the Komodo monitor, is a large reptile of the monitor lizard family Varanidae that is endemic to the Indonesian islands of Komodo, Rinca, Flores, Gili Dasami, and Gili Motang. The largest extant population lives within the Komodo National Park in Eastern Indonesia. It is the largest extant species of lizard, with the males growing to a maximum length of 3 m (10 ft) and weighing up to 150 kg (330 lb).

Text: Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Videos

140

Photos

Measurements

vs you

≈ 1.4× your weight

Also called

Ora, Komodo Monitor

Conservation status

ENEndangered

IUCN Red List assessment, 2021.

Population trendStable

Key measurements

Body mass: 87 kg
Body length: not recorded
Shoulder height: not recorded
Top speed: not recorded
Bite force: 149 N
Maximum lifespan: 62 years

All measurements ↓

Facts and figures

Everything we know about the Komodo dragon

Typical adult figures. Where a value is an estimate rather than a measurement, it says so.

Body mass

87 kgrecord 110 kg · ReptTraits

AnAge

Details ↓

data quality: questionable

Record: largest individual on record

Source: AnAge · AnAge build 15, 2023-07-03 (HAGR) · CC BY 3.0

Bite force

149 N

Details ↓

MEASURED in vivo, highest of 200 bite peaks across 10 captive animals of 25-75 kg, contact anterior on the tooth row. Strikingly weak for the body size -- the paper's point is that the animal supplements a poor bite with a 336 N ventrocaudal pull. Finite-element modelling of one individual gives 39 N at optimal gape, which the authors treat as concordant. Ignore the 696 N figure scaled from alligators; the same paper rejects it.

Source: D'Amore, Moreno, McHenry & Wroe 2011, PLoS ONE 6(10):e26226 · see citation

Maximum lifespan

62 yearsrecord 62 years · ReptTraits

AnAge

Details ↓

data quality: questionable

Record: largest individual on record

Source: AnAge · AnAge build 15, 2023-07-03 (HAGR) · CC BY 3.0

Gestation

49 days

AnAge

Details ↓