Rediscovering the dragon's paradise lost
Wednesday, September 30, 2009 - 10:14
in Paleontology & Archaeology
The world's largest living lizard species, the Komodo dragon (Varanus komodoensis), is vulnerable to extinction and yet little is known about its natural history. New research by a team of palaeontologists and archaeologists from Australia, Malaysia and Indonesia, who studied fossil evidence from Australia, Timor, Flores, Java and India, shows that Komodo Dragons most likely evolved in Australia and dispersed westward to Indonesia. The research, which also details new fossil specimens indicating the presence of a new species of giant varanid found on the island of Timor, is published 30 September in the open-access, peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE...