Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

My daughter is very interested in the Komodo Dragon. Since we are doing food webs this month for Science class, I thought she could do a food web for Komodo Island. However, we are having problems finding information about the fauna on Komodo Island outside of a handful of animals. Any idea where we can get a little more detail on the fauna of Komodo Island?

Thanks

Hi,

I would suggest looking for the fauna of Indonesia rather than specifically the fauna of Komodo, because I think you will have more luck. I just looked online and found this: http://www.indonesianfauna.com/, which might get you started.

Here: http://www.amazon.com/Fauna-amp-Ecology ... Z29DPM7QTB is a list of field guides for the region, which you might be able to request via interlibrary loan (if you haven't already). You can then find Komodo island on the maps in the field guides and see if the animals are there or not.

I would also highly recommend going to your local and/or university library and asking them for some help with this topic. Librarians are usually very helpful and are good at finding information like this.

By the way--good for you for encouraging your daughter to tie her interests in with her project in science class!

Yes, thank you. I guess she will have to make due with Indonesia though it isn't as accurate. I'm just being anal retentive I guess. I am surprised though that an endangered animal doesn't have a food chain completed somewhere.

Very few ecologists work on food webs anymore--they're mainly a tool to help students learn about ecology. You might be able to find some main prey items of the komodo dragon, but that's about it.

Also, while endangered species in the States tend to be intensively studied, elsewhere, particularly in poor countries like Indonesia, these animals tend to not be studied at all unless they are charismatic megafauna like the Komodo dragon. Unfortunate, but true.

Hi there,

I'm not sure if you already looked at these sources, but the Animal Diversity Web (sponsored by the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology) has some information about the food habits of the komodo dragon, complete with references: http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/s ... ensis.html. I find that you can often get more and more information by following references and what they cite. (Google Scholar is also a good search engine for that.)

Wikipedia has some good starting information as well (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komodo_dragon#Diet), but I would be careful to double-check the references for that one.

Let us know if you have any more questions!

Heather