History Of Komodo Dragons And Their Discovery
Komodo dragons were first discovered in the twentieth century, in the year 1912. In fact, before the twentieth century, people were under the false impression that extremely large lizards were extinct. Much to the surprise of a team of pearl fishermen who stopped offshore the Lesser Sundas in 1912 (a chain of islands in Indonesia), larger lizards did exist, and the Komodo dragon was subsequently seen but not yet to be believed. The pearl fishermen returned to their homes and spread incredible and wild stories about the immense lizards on an Island called Komodo: comparing their sightings to dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures. Of course, people found the fishermen’s tales hard to fathom, and further investigation ensued.
Strangely, the stories pertaining to the giant lizards were investigated, but the discovery of the Komodo dragon received minimal attention. A museum in Java, the Buitenzorg Zoological Museum sent out an expedition team to investigate the lizard sightings. Interestingly, it was some 14 years after their initial sighting that the Komodo dragon got the recognition it so rightly deserved. In the late 1920’s another expedition team went to the Island of Komodo, a team from the American Museum of Natural History. The team, under the direction of Henry Fairfield Osbourn, was headed up by a man named W. W. Douglas Burden and the scientist’s sole aim was to investigate the reports that pertained to the Komodo dragon and to capture one for further study if they truly existed. Burden aspired to bring back a live female and male Komodo dragon so that they could remain in captivity in the New York Zoo. Burden had experience hunting for exotic creatures and the American Museum of Natural History knew of his skills—they had hired Burden for other successful expeditions in the past.
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