How terrible is the venom of Komodo monitor lizard?

In 2009, Anwar, a 3 1 year-old fisherman, picked fruit in Komodo Island, Indonesia, accidentally fell off the fruit tree and just stepped on a monitor lizard. The lizard pounced on him instantly, biting his leg, and then biting his arm, body and neck.

A few minutes later, villagers who heard the cry for help arrived, immediately drove away the monitor lizard, rescued Anwar, and then sent him to a clinic in nearby loris Island for treatment.

However, it was too late, and finally Anwar failed to save his life.

The lizard that attacked Anwar is Komodo monitor lizard, commonly known as Komodo dragon, which is the largest lizard in existence.

At present, it is only distributed in Komodo, Karin, flores and Gilimotan.

Let's go back and analyze the cause of death of fisherman Anwar.

According to the description of the incident, we know that the fisherman Anwar fell from the tree and stepped on the monitor lizard, which came at him.

Komodo monitor lizard, within the range of Indonesia's survival, is also a top predator with amazing biting power. Once it bites its prey, there is no chance to escape.

Fisherman Anwar probably couldn't escape, causing his body to be bitten by a monitor lizard and eventually dying.

However, this is only one possibility, and another possibility is that after Anwar was bitten, the wound was not fatal.

The cause of his death may be the infection of wound bacteria or the attack of Komodo monitor lizard venom.

We may be able to find a more accurate answer by understanding the hunting methods of Komodo dragons.

It is understood that the Komodo monitor lizard can run at a speed of 20 to 25 kilometers per hour when catching prey. However, due to their large size, their endurance is not enough, and they rarely take the initiative to hunt down their prey.

On the contrary, more often, it is by lurking in the grass, water, etc., quietly waiting for the prey to approach, waiting for the time to be ripe, suddenly leaping to attack and biting the prey.

If the prey is too big to kill directly, they will follow the prey, wait for the toxin to attack, and then swallow it after the prey is unconscious or dead.

The tongue of Komodo monitor lizard, like the tongue of snake, is bifurcated and can be used to identify the smell in the air. Even a few kilometers apart, Komodo dragons can find their prey.

There is such a clip in the documentary "Life". Komodo dragons hunt buffaloes. After the giant lizard attacked and bit the buffalo, it did not catch up with the buffalo immediately because of its huge size.

But they walked behind the buffalo for a few days, waiting for the bacteria and toxins in the buffalo to attack and die before rushing to swallow them.

Yes, the Komodo monitor lizard is poisonous and the largest poisonous animal at present.

There is some debate about Komodo dragons killing their prey with venom.

For example, before the poisonous Komodo monitor lizard was discovered, it was always believed that after the Komodo monitor lizard bit its prey, its prey died because it carried a lot of bacteria in its mouth, and the wound infection caused by bacteria led to the death of its prey.

After all, Komodo dragons often give people the impression that they are scavengers with sticky saliva in their mouths, and they are covered in bacteria.

A foreign scholar has done such a comparative experiment before.

Use two fresh legs of lamb, one coated with the saliva of Komodo monitor lizard and the other not. After three days of shelving, I can finally see it clearly.

The leg of lamb coated with the saliva of Komodo monitor lizard has undergone severe decay. Moreover, the decay rate is significantly higher than that of leg of lamb without saliva of Komodo monitor lizard.

This experiment seems to confirm to some extent that Komodo dragons kill their prey by infecting a large number of bacteria in saliva.

However, a later study abroad showed that there was no essential difference between the bacteria in the mouth of Komodo monitor lizard and those in the mouths of other large animals and carnivores.

Theoretically, carnivores can also cause sepsis and bacterial infection in animal wounds after biting their prey.

Until 2009, when a research team from Melbourne University scanned the head specimen of a dead Komodo monitor lizard, it found a pair of giant poison glands similar to poisonous lizards in its mandible.

When Komodo dragons hunt and bite their prey, the venom glands of the mandible will quickly mix the venom into saliva and enter the wound of the prey.

However, the bitten part of the prey wound will swell rapidly, and bleeding will begin to spread after more than a few hours, causing severe pain all over the prey.

The research team found components from the venom gland secretion of Komodo monitor lizard that can lower blood pressure, inhibit blood coagulation, paralyze muscles and induce hypothermia.

Similarly, some scholars have done comparative experiments, which also confirmed this discovery.

The content of the experiment is to mix the venom of Komodo monitor lizard with our human blood and wait for 20 minutes.

After human blood leaves the human body, it will condense into small pieces in less than 20 minutes, while the blood mixed with the venom of Komodo monitor lizard, on the other hand, keeps flowing.

This proves that after the Komodo dragon bites its prey, if the venom infected by blood protein can't solidify, the blood will continue to flow out.

Coupled with the bacteria carried in the mouth and wound infection after the giant lizard bites its prey, the prey is basically overwhelmed under this double blow.

So it has always been thought that bacteria are at work. In fact, the most important thing is the venom of Komodo monitor lizard.

In many cases, venom often attacks first, causing muscle paralysis and bleeding of prey, and then cooperating with septicemia caused by bacterial infection, and finally killing prey.

Therefore, the death of fisherman Anwar in the incident is probably due to the excessive wounds after being bitten by Komodo monitor lizard, which was infected by venom and bacteria, leading to bleeding and eventually death.

In fact, if the venom of Komodo monitor lizard is compared with some snakes, the venom of monitor lizard is very inefficient. Take the bitten buffalo in the documentary as an example. After being bitten, he died a few days later.

The familiar poisonous snakes can often kill their prey in a few hours.

The terrible thing about the venom of Komodo monitor lizard is that it will infect a lot of bacteria when biting its prey, and the infected wound will bleed a lot.

Moreover, because the mouth of Komodo monitor lizard is relatively large and the wound is relatively large, it is very difficult to bind it up. If the bleeding cannot be stopped in time, it is easy to endanger life.

Even if you are out of danger through treatment, the wound will leave obvious scars because of the oversized wound and bacterial infection.

First of all, Komodo monitor lizard only lives in Indonesia, and we don't have any contact with it at ordinary times.

Secondly, Komodo dragons rarely attack humans unless they are particularly hungry, unless they think you have violated their territory.

If you go to Komodo Island in Indonesia, you must not act alone, but try to travel with your companions and teams. We'd better take a stick or something in our hand and scare off Komodo dragons if necessary.

If you really encounter an extreme situation, you provoke a Komodo monitor lizard, and you are still acting alone.

Then you have only two situations, either fight or run away!

Komodo dragons have thick skin. If it has a weapon in its hand, try to scare it away. If it can't, it will attack its weakest position, eyes and head.

If it really doesn't work, then run. Komodo dragons run fast, but their endurance is not good, especially when they only run in a straight line.

Don't run in a straight line when you are running. Run to someone's place when you run, and then call for help.

If you are accidentally bitten by a Komodo monitor lizard, you must call for help immediately and seek medical attention in time. As long as the current medical treatment is not too serious, it can be completely cured, but! What can be avoided must be avoided.

Australian scientists have a new theory. They found that there were no more bacteria in the mouth cavity of Komodo than other wild animals, but they could kill small creatures quickly. Some bitten survivors suffered from septicemia, but they survived. So they guessed that there might be other reasons, so they kept the head of a dead Komodo monitor intact and brought it back to the laboratory. Then they took a three-dimensional picture of the head structure with magnetic resonance imaging technology, and found that there were six poison glands on each side of its jaw, which together could hold about 6g of venom.

Although Komodo dragons do not have fangs grooves common to other poisonous reptiles, they have their own unique venom delivery system. They will pierce their prey with sharp serrated teeth. In the process of the prey's struggle, the poison gland will quietly infiltrate the wound of the prey and let the prey die slowly.

Under normal circumstances, the blood of an ordinary wound will coagulate within an hour, but scientists observed that an administrator was bitten by a Komodo monitor lizard. His wound bled for more than three or four hours. Fortunately, the wound was not very big, otherwise the blood would have dried up.

The researchers found that the venom of Komodo monitor lizard contains some of the same ingredients as snake venom, which will dilute blood and dilate blood vessels, leading to shock; Venom can quickly reduce the blood pressure of prey, anticoagulate blood, destroy blood coagulation function, and make animals bleed to death.

Venom can enhance bleeding and hypotension caused by deep laceration by anticoagulation and inducing blood pressure reduction. The dose of 0. 1mg/kg will cause severe hypotension, and the dose of 0.4mg/kg is enough to induce blood pressure collapse. When an adult Komodo monitor lizard attacks a 40 kg hyena, it needs 1.6 mg of venom to enter the blood, which can lead to complete hypotension and collapse. If an adult monitor lizard attacks a 60 kg adult monitor lizard, it takes 24 mg of venom to enter the blood to cause complete hypotension collapse. However, there is at least 6g venom in the venom gland of the monitor lizard, so it is certain that it was bitten by the monitor lizard in adulthood, with low blood pressure and bleeding.

There are two main concerns after being bitten, bacterial infection and wound coagulation. Komodo dragons have a larger mouth, and the wounds they cause are generally larger. Simple operation during disinfection. If you can clean the wound in time and use antibiotics, you can avoid bacterial infection. Another is to stop bleeding. Usually, in order to avoid excessive bleeding, some first-aid measures will be taken, such as dressing the bleeding point with gauze and bandage when venous bleeding, and using tourniquet when arterial bleeding, all in order to temporarily inhibit the massive outflow of blood. The most important thing is to seek medical attention in time, because the venom will make the blood unable to coagulate. It is completely salvageable to disinfect, remove the venom and suture the wound in time after medical treatment.