[...]
" I had come to Komodo [Nat'L Park] just a few weeks shy of Charles Darwin's 200th birthday. That night, as I swung in my hammock, I thought about Darwin's observation that animals at the top of the food chain tend to develop eccentric, useless traits. It occurred to me that, in this regard, humans and Komodos have something in common.
"Size certainly does matter, and in the case of the world's largest lizard, it has become a profound disadvantage. A member of the monitor family whose ancestors expanded northward from Australia, Varanus kmodoensis apparently evolved alongside a species of pygmy elephants that was likely its primary food source. Thus, for much of its existence, the Komodo's exceptional mass and power gave it an advantage in taking down its husky prey.
"But once the elephants died off, the Komodo's bulk became a liability, requiring an enormous caloric intake to fuel, and long sunbaths to warm up. The dragon, with its swaggering, inefficient walk, doesn't have the endurance or the versatility of its smaler monitor-lizard cousins, whose range expanded as the Komodo's shrank to this small, isolated pocket of islands.
"Like Komodos, most humans have reached a perverse point where we are physically over-equipped to do what we do most of all, which is sit. Generally speaking, our long, speedy, predator-evading legs are hardly used to potential. Unless, of course, we bring them to a place such as Komodo Island, where we might actually need them to survive."
" I had come to Komodo [Nat'L Park] just a few weeks shy of Charles Darwin's 200th birthday. That night, as I swung in my hammock, I thought about Darwin's observation that animals at the top of the food chain tend to develop eccentric, useless traits. It occurred to me that, in this regard, humans and Komodos have something in common.
"Size certainly does matter, and in the case of the world's largest lizard, it has become a profound disadvantage. A member of the monitor family whose ancestors expanded northward from Australia, Varanus kmodoensis apparently evolved alongside a species of pygmy elephants that was likely its primary food source. Thus, for much of its existence, the Komodo's exceptional mass and power gave it an advantage in taking down its husky prey.
"But once the elephants died off, the Komodo's bulk became a liability, requiring an enormous caloric intake to fuel, and long sunbaths to warm up. The dragon, with its swaggering, inefficient walk, doesn't have the endurance or the versatility of its smaler monitor-lizard cousins, whose range expanded as the Komodo's shrank to this small, isolated pocket of islands.
"Like Komodos, most humans have reached a perverse point where we are physically over-equipped to do what we do most of all, which is sit. Generally speaking, our long, speedy, predator-evading legs are hardly used to potential. Unless, of course, we bring them to a place such as Komodo Island, where we might actually need them to survive."[...]
In memory of Baron Rudolf von Reding, Biberegg
Born in Switzerland the 8 August 1895
And disappeared on this island the 18 July 1974
"He loved nature throughout his life."
"Reading that last line, I can't help but think that a man like the baron would consider himself priviledged, at least in theory, to beat back the stats that would have him succumb to something like heart disease, stroke, or a withering travail with cancer.
"I don't want to over-romanticize it; the baron's most natural of deaths must have been horrific. But in those last peaceful, oblivious moments, as he sat in the shade and gazed out over the hills and shimmering oceans beyond, I'm betting he felt incredibly lucky, as I did that morning, to be part of a world that still has a Komodo Island..."
Taken with gratitude from National Geographic Adventure Magazine, November 2009.
