Komodo Dragon most likely evolved in Australia 3-4 mln yrs ago
September 30th, 2009 - 12:57 pm ICT by ANI

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Washington, September 30 (ANI): A team of palaeontologists and archaeologists, who studied fossil evidence from Australia, Timor, Flores, Java and India, has shown that Komodo Dragons most likely evolved in Australia around 3-4 million years ago and dispersed westward to Indonesia.

According to study author Scott Hocknull, Senior Curator of Geosciences at the Queensland Museum, Australia is a hub for lizard evolution.

New fossil discoveries show that the ancestor of the Komodo dragon evolved on mainland Australia, around 3-4 million years ago and then dispersed west to Indonesia.

The fossil record shows that over the last four million years Australia has been home to the worlds largest lizards, including a five metre giant called Megalania (Varanus prisca), Hocknull said.

Now we can say Australia was also the birthplace of the three-metre Komodo dragon (Varanus komodoensis), dispelling the long-held scientific hypothesis that it evolved from a smaller ancestor in isolation on the Indonesian islands, he added.

Over the past three years, weve unearthed numerous fossils from eastern Australia dated from 300,000 years ago to approximately four million years ago that we now know to be the Komodo dragon, said Hocknull.

When we compared these fossils to the bones of present-day Komodo dragons, they were identical, he said.

The varanids are a group of giant monitor lizards, which are the worlds largest terrestrial lizards and which were ubiquitous in Australasia for over 3.8 million years, having evolved alongside large-bodied, mammalian carnivores, such as Thylacoleo, the marsupial lion.

Growing to 2-3 metres in length and weighing around 70 kilos, the Komodo dragon is the last of the truly giant monitor lizards.

This research also confirms that both giant lizards, Megalania (Varanus priscus) and the Komodo dragon (Varanus komodoensis) existed in Australia at the same time, Hocknull said.

Scott Hocknull and his international team have compared fossil evidence of Komodo dragons and other giant varanids in order to reconstruct the palaeobiogeography of the worlds largest land-based lizards.

The researchers hope this will have implications for the conservation of the Komodo dragon, which is now found on just a few isolated islands in eastern Indonesia, between Java and Australia, and vulnerable to extinction, probably due to habitat loss and persecution by modern humans over the last few millennia. (ANI)

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greg) This has been known for a long time but not confirmed.

A team of scientists from Australia, Malaysia and Indonesia have disproved claims that the worlds largest lizard, the Komodo dragon, evolved in Indonesia.

New research by the team of palaeontologists and archaeologists, who studied fossil evidence from Australia, Timor, Flores, Java and India, shows that Komodo dragons most likely evolved in Australia and dispersed westward to Indonesia.

The research was published on Wednesday in the journal PLoS ONE
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0007241.

The carnivorous Komodo dragon is the largest living species of lizard in the world and is now only found on the Indonesian islands of Komodo, Rinca, Flores and Gili Motang. A member of the monitor lizard family, Komodo dragons kill prey with their sharp teeth and septic saliva and grow to an average length of two to three meters, weighing around 70 kilograms.

Author Scott Hocknull, Senior Curator of Geosciences at the Queensland
Museum, said Australia is a hub for lizard evolution. The fossil record shows that over the last four million years Australia has been home to the worlds largest lizards, including a five meter giant called Megalania, Mr Hocknull said in a press statement.

Now we can say Australia was also the birthplace of the three-meter Komodo dragon, dispelling the long-held scientific hypothesis that it evolved from a smaller ancestor in isolation on the Indonesian islands, he said.

Hocknull said that the research team had unearthed a number of fossils from eastern Australia dated from 300,000 years ago to approximately four million years ago that are now known to be Komodo dragons. The bones in the fossils were identical to the bones of present-day Komodo dragons, he said.

It was previously thought that the Komodo dragon evolved to its large size as a response to insular island processes, lack of carnivore competition or as a specialist hunter of pygmy elephants called Stegodon. However, Hocknull and his colleagues reported that the ancestor of the Komodo dragon most likely evolved in Australia and reached Flores around 900,000 years ago.

The researchers hope their findings will help the conservation of the Komodo dragon, which is considered vulnerable to extinction due to habitat loss and persecution by humans.