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Komodo dragon may have a wimpish insect bite for their size , but somehow the elephantine lizard manage to take down fair game as large as water buffalos .
A new bailiwick unveil that a few XII razor - acute teeth combined with beefy neck opening muscles make up for the reptile ’s dainty chomp .
Komodo dragon lizards may have weak bites, but their powerful throat muscles and razor-sharp teeth make up for their dainty chomp.
" The Komodo has a featherweight , space - frame skull and pungency like a wimp , but a combining of very clever engineering and wickedly sharp teeth allow it to do serious damage , " said Stephen Wroe , a life scientist at the University of New South Wales in Australia .
Wroe and his colleague Karen Moreno detail their findings about Komodo dragons , a type of monitor lizard plant in central Indonesia that can grow closely 10 feet ( 3 meters ) in length and weigh 154 lbf. ( 70 kilograms ) , in a recent outlet of theJournal of Anatomy .
To inquire the mystery of how the Komodo flying dragon can attack with deadly forcefulness without herculean chompers , Wroe and Moreno construct a framework of its question and throat with computer software normally used to canvass minute forces in fomite . The jaw may be weak , but 100 million years of evolution have given the dragon — the largest livelihood specie of lounge lizard — other shaft to deliver the goods .
“ The Komodo displays a unique hold - and - pull alimentation proficiency , " Wroe say . " Its fragile skull dissent greatly from most living terrestrial prominent prey specialists , but it ’s a precision instrument . "
He explain that the lizard nabs prey with 60 parlous tooth , although its bite is weak . To make up for the lack of bite power , strong throat muscles drag the repast through the razor - keen jowls and into the stomach .
Wroe said the eating action mechanism removes severe accent from the slight yet streamlined skull .
" This remarkable simplification in stress … is facilitate partially by the shape of the ivory , " he said , noting also that their arrangement is a key to succeeder .
Once a Komodo dragon maims its quarry , which can count nearly as much as the lounge lizard , it is swallowed whole and later on regurgitated in a foul - sense pellet of hair , ivory and other indigestible stiff . The lizards are also have intercourse for theirinfectious bitesand parthenogeny , or the power toreproduce without mating .
