I've seen Komodo dragons nesting on the side of a hill where the sun hits at certain time...so the mound is at certain temperature. I think the mounds were made by certain type of birds...

'Seen', or 'seen on TV'? They're not quite the same. Often the latter is heavily manipulated and edited to tell a story, so it's not quite the same as seeing it yourself.



As it happens, in this instance the dragons have been known to show a preference for nesting in scrubfowl mounds and, as your program described, they do go for nests exposed to the sun. If you're interested, you can read about it here: Paper on Komodo dragon nesting by Jessop et al



Scrubfowl are a type of megapode, a group of Australasian birds that nest in the ground and use the temperature of the sun and/or composted material rather than sitting on the eggs and using their own body heat. Orange-footed scrubfowl, the species that occurs on Flores, Rinca and Komodo (and which also occurs in northern Australia), are known for making huge mounds. Those mounds are certainly a ready source of large amounts of diggable dirt.



I don't think monitors like a 'cave' feel or pre-dug holes for anything other than hide-spots, certainly not for nesting. A nest is something they dig out themselves so the eggs aren't exposed to potentially drying, open air for long after laying.



Here's a photograph of what's left of a dragon's nest burrow after the young have emerged. Not much of a shot because the whole mound was in disarray - it was late May and all of the young dragons had dispersed. I suspect the birds have long since stopped maintaining the mound.



By way of comparison, here's a cave-like hide used by a dragon during the cooler parts of the dry season.

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