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Graphic Nature Video: Modern Dinosaur Eats A Deer Whole

This is one of those videos that I came across before it went viral but didn't want to share it because you all would get mad at me for bringing more animal gore on the TL. But now that it is viral and other people are sharing it, it is now appropriate to show all of you guys. 

Komodo Dragons are the closest terrestrial animal to dinosaurs. Besides crocodiles these guys have existed on the planet at an apex predator level before humans' ancestors left the trees. 

Komodo Dragons routinely kill and eat humans in their respective islands. 

Here are some of the stories.

A Tragic Playdate

In 2007, a dragon killed an 8-year-old boy on Komodo Island, marking the first fatal attack on a human in 33 years, the Guardian reported. The attack took place in March’s dry season, so rangers speculate that the murderous lizard may have been particularly hungry given that the watering holes – and the prey that gather there – had dried up. The dragon lunged when the boy went behind a bush to use the bathroom, MSNBC writes.

Mr. Safina recalls the boy’s friends – who had been playing together in the scrubland near their village – rushing to get help from their parents. According to the Guardian, the boy’s uncle came running and threw rocks at the lizard until it released his nephew. While the Guardian writes that the boy died from massive bleeding from his torso, Mr. Safina recalls the boy being bitten in half.

The dragons do not only go after children though.

Death in the Garden 

In 2009, 31-year-old Muhamad Anwar set out to gather sugar apples from an orchard on Komodo Island. A misstep that sent him falling from the tree proved to be his undoing. Two Komodo dragons were waiting below, and sprang on Anwar. His neighbors heard the commotion, and ran to his rescue minutes later. By the time they arrived, however, Anwar had already suffered fatal injuries, and was bleeding from bites to his hands, body, legs and neck, the Guardian reports.  Anwar died shortly after the attack, in a clinic on Flores Island.

These stories get scarier and scarier

Dragon Under the Desk  

In 2009, Maen, a fellow guide like Mr. Safina, headed to the staff office as he would any other morning. Like all the other buildings on Rinca Island, Maen’s unit sat on stilts, and hungry dragons would often gather below to wait for the occasional food scrap. On this morning, however, Maen sensed that he was not alone. Just settling in at his desk, he looked down. At his sandled feet lay a dragon, peering back up at him.

As it turned out, one of the cleaning crew had left the office door open the night before and the hungry predator had crept in, likely in search of food. Heart pounding, Maen attempted to slowly withdraw his leg from the dragon’s vicinity. But he moved too quickly, cueing the motion-sensitive carnivore to lunge. The dragon chomped down on Maen’s leg, clenching its jaw shut. Maen kicked at the dragon’s neck, then grabbed its jaws with his hands and wrenched its mouth open, slicing open his arm in the process.

Although Maen shouted for help, most of the rangers were in the cafeteria and could not hear his screams. Only one picked up on the noise, and came to investigate. “I shouted and he came to help me but he didn’t like to come up because the dragon was still moving around,” Maen explained to travel writer Michael Turtle, of Time Travel Turtle. “Then he saw the blood on the floor and he got everyone from the kitchen. All the people come running here, but other dragons follow along as well.”

The dragons – which can smell blood and the scent of death from nearly 6 miles away – followed the crowd. Some rangers fended off the would-be feeding frenzy, while a couple others darted into Maen’s office to help their colleague fight free from his attacker. Maneuvering their injured friend through the pack of dragons waiting outside, they managed to carry him to the island’s dock, where he was rushed to Flores Island’s hospital. The injuries were too much for the small medical center to contend with, however, and Maen wound up being flown to Bali for six hours of emergency treatment and 55 stitches, MSNBC reports. All in all, it took him six months to recover from his brush with the dragon.

The Komodo Dragon, thank God, lives on the other side of the earth relative to America. But it is one of those creatures that most definitely hunted our ancestors.