With the arrival of night, the islands are transformed. The species which remain inactive during the day now awake, the predators go hunting under the cover of darkness, and the air is filled with sounds which still today inspire fear among the natives. Though they are a fisher people, the inhabitants of Komodo have transformed the ecosystem of the island. Since man first came here, goats and water buffalo have grazed on the savanna. The constant felling of trees for wood has cleared many of the forests which, in the past, covered these lands, and much of the islands is now savanna. Their main prey, the herbivores endemic, were reduced in numbers by the hunters and their trained dogs, while the cattle devoured the pasture. With the presence of man in its territory, and the decline of its natural prey, confrontation was inevitable. The dragons began to hunt down the domestic cattle and came increasingly close to the human settlements. As the ecosystems deteriorated, the pressure on the local inhabitants became increasingly great. The natives, unaware that they were to blame, saw how each year there were more and more attacks.

The size of the prey is no problem for the lizards. If they can’t kill it instantly, biting it will be enough. In their mouths, they have over 50 types of infectious bacteria, and a single bite is sufficient for these to be transferred to the wound. Within a week at most, the animal will die as a result of the infection. A dragon can eat up to 70% of its body weight at a single sitting, thanks to its ability to swell its stomach. A nine-year old child can be completely devoured by a single adult. It is not surprising, therefore, that these creatures inspire profound terror among the natives of the island.

Competition between the dragons and man has brought them to the verge of extinction. Just four years after they were discovered, they were already a protected species but, despite this, numbers continue to fall. It was only 31 years later, in 1936, that the government understood that protecting them would be useless if they didn’t also conserve their natural habitat. The islands on which they still lived were declared sanctuaries and their ecosystems protected.

The archipelago is, at one and the same time, myth and reality, the place where science and fantasy meet. The movement of the continental plates created it. The glaciations and the sea gave it life, and evolution and isolation have converted it into a legend.