The Watchman And Southron

VARANUS KOMODOENSIS

When H. G. Wells wrote his "The Lost World" which was subsequently made into a thrilling movie, the existence of prehistoric animals in the contemporary world was regarded by most of us as a fascinating bit of fiction.

Now let fact have its turn.

A scientific expedition of the American Museum of Natural History studied, photographed and took both living and dead specimens of giant lizards on the island of Komodo in the Lesser Sunda Islands in Malaysia.

This giant lizard, known to scientists as the Varanus Komodoensis first appeared as a genus in the early Eocene period, about 60 million years ago. As described in the National Geographic Magazine:

"The lizards, which attain a length of 10 feet and a weight of 250 pounds, are vicious, carnivorous reptiles, which attack their food much as the great flesh-eating dinosaurs must have done, ripping off great chunks of meat with their sharp, recurved and saw-edged teeth and swallowing them whole bones and all."

Not pleasant animals to meet when on a picnic.

In the Wells story, the prehistoric animals were found on an isolated, high plateau. In the Malaysian Islands, these very ancient lizards are found on an island that is geologically recent—an old animal on a young island. Scientists very properly ask, "How did they get there? Whence did they come?"

Perhaps these questions will be answered some day.

In the meantime, Varanus Komodoensis furnishes fascinating material for observation and speculation.