Friday, October 21, 2011

Komodo dragon


Some biologists have reported spectacular findings, which formed as a single species of giant lizard, reptile with a long-sized adults and awarded the two sexes.
Reptiles hidden but it's brightly colored, monitor lizard, is a close cousin of the Komodo dragon in Indonesia, said the biologist, on Wednesday (6 / 4), as quoted by AFP and Reuters.
But not like dragons, scary, it's the hunted animals for meat is a carnivore and do not eat rotten meat. In fact, the animal has always been peaceful and enjoyed the fruits.
The lizard, which is named "Varanus bitatawa", has a length of six feet but weighs only 20 pounds, according to calculations published by the Royal Society, Britain, and was quoted by AFP and Reuters.
The animal was found in a river valley on the island of Luzon, northern Philippines, once able to survive due to habitat loss and hunting by local people - who use it as food, says Rafe Brown of the University of Kansas - whose team confirmed the findings.
The number of lizards that survive unknown.
Species are almost certainly is a very endangered animals, and may already be extinct without inserted into the list if only large males was rescued by a hunter in June.
"Animals that live in trees, so his body can not for the Komodo dragon, a very large animals that eat so much fresh meat," Brown said by telephone told Reuters reporters. "These animals are predators of fruit and fruit-eating lizard third in the world."
Finding a large vertebrate species are rare events, Brown said. The lizard, new species of Varanus species, can be shy and hide from humans, its main predators, and may explain why the animal had gone undetected by scientists in a very long time.
Biologists first saw pictures of the brightly colored lizards in 2001, when people are researching the area to meet with some of the hunters who was carrying a dead lizard colorful, but the species at that time gave no scientific recognition.
Within a few years later, Brown said, experts etnobiologi kept hearing stories "about the two types of lizards are favored by many people because of their meat tastes better than the lizards that live in soil; animals were described as larger animals with more bright colors" .
Both types of lizards are described by the local community are two names for the same animal, Brown said.
In 2009, undergraduate students at the end of a two-month expedition constantly find signs of large lizards. There is a nail scratches on trees and shrubs pandanus tree, whose fruits are preferred by lizards.
Some hunters who had heard the team's interest to bring an adult male lizards are almost dead to their camp. The team shut down the animal and genetic examination confirm it as a unique species, Brown said.
DNA analysis shows there is a deep genetic differences between the new lizard and his immediate family, "monitor lizard", which are also predators of fruit but live in the southern tip of Luzon Island, and not in the far north - a place to live "monitor lizard" forest.
The discovery of such rare species in densely populated areas, places that have lost so many plants, "a wonderful surprise", according to some authors report in the journal Biology Letters.
Another important finding in decades is kipunji monkey, which inhabits a small group of forests in Tanzania, and saola-cow family that lived in the forest and is only found in Vietnam and Laos.
"Varanus bitatawa" has a unique and unusual sexual anatomy, the study said.
Legs and a scaly body filled with blue-black color with dots of pale yellow-green, while the tail marked with alternating sections of black and green.
Male lizards have two penises, called hemipene, which is also found in snakes and other lizards.
Both the penis is often used interchangeably, and sometimes contain spines or hooks that bergungsi as an anchor to attach the female lizard during a relationship.

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