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The Komodo dragon is the largest lizard with venom in its saliva.

On the tiny Indonesian island of Komodo, there lives a real dragon. Not a fairy tale - a very real one. Three meters long, weighs 90 kilograms, runs faster than a person and has poison in its saliva. If you meet one, you won't even have time to tell.

For a long time, it was thought that the victims of Komodo dragons die from bacteria in their mouths. They say that there is so much dirt in the lizard's mouth that a bite inevitably leads to blood poisoning. But in 2009, scientists from Australia found the real reason. The dragon's lower jaw has special glands that secrete poison! This poison lowers the victim's blood pressure, prevents blood from clotting, and causes shock. After a bite, the buffalo cannot escape - it weakens and falls.

The Komodo dragon is the largest living lizard on Earth. It can eat 80% of its own weight at a time! Imagine that you weigh 30 kilograms and eat 24 kilograms of food in one meal. After such a feast, the dragon sleeps for two weeks.

And female dragons also experience parthenogenesis - they can give birth to cubs without a male! This is a well-known phenomenon - the female simply "copies" herself. In the London Zoo, 4 babies were born at once.

There are only about 5,000 Komodo dragons left on the planet. They live only on 5 Indonesian islands. Nowhere else, not even in neighboring countries. They are a true treasure of nature.

Dragons exist. They're just small, lizard-like, and live on the other side of the world.