Posted by:
mkbay
at Fri Jan 23 19:12:00 2004 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by mkbay ]
Hi Shvar and JohnA.,
John, we have spoke of this many times; I wrote about the maximum lengths in Reptilian magazine a few years ago on the Editorial pages: 10'3" salvator was shot in Sri Lanka by Captain (later Major) S. Stanley and deposited into the British Museum Natural History. The largest komodo dragon (V. komodoensis) was 10'3" by Burton on his 1927 trip. Burden's komodo was collected and sailed (by mishap) to Washington State instead of San Diego, caught pneumonia and died shortly there-after. Its stuffed mount floated around for decades, and ended up in Tilden Park Regional Park, in Berkeley, CA for ~15 years or so in their foyer/lobby.
They got tired of it and a bar in Los Angeles bought it and took down to Los Angeles via pick-up truck; Los Angeles Natural History Museum apparently got wind of it, and got it from the bar owner - and it is now in LANHM. Its a beautiful mount and nicely displayed, and is in fact 10'2" - I measured it while it was here in Tilden Park (10 minutes from me - John, you remember the park, the place where I almost died walking up that hill, that I still cannot walk up w/out having a respiratory attack~).
As for V. salvadorii, the largest known male was owned by Ron St. Pierre in the early 90's. I photographed and measured him at 8'3". There is a larger male at Brownsville Zoo, one of their parents to the several hatchlings they have had, and he is over 10 feet total length. However, V. salvadorii does not even close to the wight of V. salvator and V. komodoensis...
and then there are the various nebulous reports of giant goannas in PNG and Africa which exceed 9 feet, and although the species' in question are still unknown, I do know that at least 2 do actually exist in Africa, and the circumstantial evidence for the thing in PNG, alhough sometimes vague, are found buried in books of exploration/ethnology/colonial Rule and enlightening to say the least...
cheers,
markb
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record sizes - V.salvator, V.salvadorii, V. komodoensis, megalania - mkbay, Fri Jan 23 19:12:00 2004