Revered: David Attenborough and Komodo Dragons

This was a wonderful podcast, it really captured my imagination.

It starts ernestly, with Sir David talking in revered terms regarding a 16th Italian encyclopaedia which documents in detail several different types of Dragon? Sir David is respectful and takes these records seriously and at face value?

Next he jumps forward several centuries to the discovery of the "Komodo Dragons" on remote Indonesian island of Komodo. Technically a giant lizard, to the layman this huge reptile has a striking dragon-like appearance.

The dragons have a nasty bite, their venom acts slowly, an initial bite to a water buffalo would weaken and slow it, then a few days later, the Komodo dragon will bite again and the venom accumulates ... "the reptile has all the time of world":

Although Komodo dragons eat mostly carrion, they will also hunt and ambush prey including invertebrates, birds, and mammals.

But Sir David has not finished, these venomous carnivorous giant lizards have an even more exotic hidden secrets.. sex and death!  

At first the sex life of the Komodo is sounds sorts of rough but not that unusual: 

During this period, males fight over females and territory by grappling with one another upon their hind legs with the loser eventually being pinned to the ground. These males may vomit or defecate when preparing for the fight. The winner of the fight will then flick his long tongue at the female to gain information about her receptivity. Females are antagonistic and resist with their claws and teeth during the early phases of courtship. Therefore, the male must fully restrain the female during coitus to avoid being hurt. Other courtship displays include males rubbing their chins on the female, hard scratches to the back, and licking.

however, the next bit really caught my attention (this was a shocking as the idea of real life dragons):

A Komodo dragon at London Zoo named Sungai laid a clutch of eggs in late 2005 after being separated from male company for more than two years. Scientists initially assumed that she had been able to store sperm from her earlier encounter with a male, an adaptation known as superfecundation... 

Scientists at Liverpool University in England performed genetic tests on three eggs that collapsed after being moved to an incubator, and verified that Flora had never been in physical contact with a male dragon. After Flora's eggs' condition had been discovered, testing showed that Sungai's eggs were also produced without outside fertilization.

Komodo dragons have the ZW chromosomal sex-determination system, as opposed to the mammalian XY system. 

Wow... parthenogenesis and the ZW chromosomal sex-determination system!?

However Sir David still hasn't finished, the Komodo have one more dark secret, these ancient reptiles are also cannibalistic:

Young Komodo dragons spend much of their first few years in trees, where they are relatively safe from predators, including cannibalistic adults, who make juvenile dragons 10% of their diet. According to David Attenborough, the habit of cannibalism may be advantageous in sustaining the large size of adults, as medium-sized prey on the islands is rare

revere |riˈvi(ə)r|verb [ trans. ] (often be revered)feel deep respect or admiration for (something) : Cézanne's still lifes were revered by his contemporariesORIGIN mid 17th cent.: from French révérer or Latin revereri, fromre- (expressing intensive force) + vereri ‘to fear.’

parthenogenesis |ˌpärθənōˈjenəsis|noun Biologyreproduction from an ovum without fertilization, esp. as a normal process in some invertebrates and lower plants.ORIGIN mid 19th cent.: modern Latin, from Greek parthenos ‘virgin’+ genesis ‘creation.’