ocean son: Komodo Dragon

Monday, May 22, 2017

Komodo Dragon

For the past month or so Kai has been working on becoming an expert on the Komodo Dragon. It's a long standing tradition at his school where every other year the kindergarten and first graders each choose an animal from the list of endangered, threatened or vulnerable animals and they become an expert on that animal. They write a report about their animal and then they all dress up like their animal to present the things they have learned to the rest of the school.

This past Friday was Kai's Wild Animal Safari day where he and his classmates presented their animal facts to the other students, parents and teachers. It was amazing.

Kai chose the Komodo Dragon which we learned lives on the Islands of Indonesia. It is threatened due to hunting and changes to it's habitat. It eats by biting chunks out of it's prey and swallowing those chunks whole - ew! It has poisonous saliva that kills it's prey so it will often bite an animal and then follow it around until it dies. After it eats it will barf up the parts of it's prey it was unable to digest. Kind of like and owl pellet but way bigger and more gross. It is the largest lizard on earth and can get up to 300 lb and 10 feet long! It's scales are made of keratin which is the same thing our fingernails are made from and it's skin is so strong even an arrow can't pierce through it!

Needless to say the Komodo Dragon has a new place in all of our hearts. Kai did an AWESOME job educating everyone and it was a super fun day seeing all the kids shine.

When we found out there is a Komodo Dragon at the SF Zoo we had to make a special trip to visit it! This is Kai out front of the exhibit with the sculpture of a life sized one!