Now that is a scary scene! What appears to be a Komodo dragon can be seen in the video below swallowing a deer whole. How is this possible? According to the Smithsonian’s National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute, the Komodo has some hefty jaw and throat muscles that allow it to swallow huge chunks of meat insanely fast. It also has an intramandibular hinge that opens the lower jaw unusually wide. Its stomach expands so an adult can eat up to 80% of its own body weight in a single meal.

Komodo dragons can only be found on few Indonesian islands, including (of course) the island of Komodo! They live in tropical savanna forests but range all over the islands from beach to ridge top.

These large lizards eat almost any kind of meat, scavenging for carcasses or stalking animals that range as small as rodents to even large water buffalo! Young Komodos will eat small lizards, snakes, birds and bugs. If they live to be 5 years old, they move onto larger prey, such as rodents, monkeys, goats, wild boars and their favorite food (and ours too), deer. These reptiles are apex predators, but they are also cannibalistic (they’ll eat the younger lizards). Yikes.

You can find lots of fascinating facts on the Komodo dragon at nationalzoo.si.edu/animals/komodo-dragon

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