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Australia was 'hothouse' for killer lizards

Sarah Clarke

Posted , updated 
Pregnant: Flora is expecting eight babies.
The arrival of humans may have pushed the dragons into extinction in Australia.(







Once reputed to be the origin of the Chinese dragon myth, the Komodo dragon is now in such small numbers it is considered a vulnerable species.

The remaining 5,000 or so live on a handful of isolated islands in eastern Indonesia, which many scientists always believed was their birthplace.

Dr Hocknull says the fossilised bones discovered at three different sites across Queensland are identical to the komodo dragon.

"It was a particular set of fossils that were found at Mount Etna in Queensland that were dated around 300,000 years old that really sparked my interest, because I was the person that helped find the material," he said.


"Say for example a lace monitor or something - but it was much much bigger.

"The fossils that were found in Queensland, in eastern Australia, show that the komodo dragon had its origins here in Australia about four million years ago and persisted in Australia until at least 300,000 years ago and perhaps even younger than that.

"What it shows is that again, Australia is home to some very strange and very peculiar animals that now no longer live on our continent and have found a home elsewhere."

Island of hobbits



The question is, what caused its extinction?

The 300,000-year record is the youngest record that we have," Dr Hocknull said.

"We can assume that the Komodo may have kicked along in Australia right up until human arrival. There's no reason to assume not.


"What the record on Flores shows in Indonesia is that the Komodo dragon was there for over a million years kicking along quite nicely.


According to Dr Hocknull that changed about 2,000 years ago, when its range retracted to the coast lines of where it is now found.

"The only thing you can link that to is habitat destruction and persecution by modern humans," he said.

The Komodo dragon is well-known as a man eater and would have no doubt put up a good fight against modern man.

So why did it survive and thrive on the tiny isolated Indonesian island of Flores?


"It became extinct - we think about 50,000 years ago - about the time that humans arrived in Australia, and of course it disappeared from every other island in Indonesia except Flores," he said.

"The one interesting thing about Flores is that it is home of the hobbit.



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