The Komodo dragon is the largest living lizard. It is a kind of monitor lizard, and it lives on a few islands in Indonesia. Its home is the tropical savanna forests of those islands. Most wild Komodo dragons weigh about 154 pounds, and the longest one that was checked was 10.3 feet long.

A Komodo dragon finds food mainly by its sense of smell. It uses its long, forked tongue to sample the air. It can also see things as far as 300 meters away, but it has a smaller hearing range than a person.

A Komodo dragon lives and hunts alone. It waits quietly in one spot for food to come by. It eats deer, and it eats dead animals that it finds. It can eat up to 80 percent of its own weight in one meal.

A Komodo dragon also has venom, a poison made in glands in its lower jaw. The venom keeps blood from clotting, and it lowers blood pressure. Long ago people thought bacteria in a Komodo dragon's mouth helped it hunt. Scientists now reject that old idea.

A Komodo dragon starts life in an egg. A female lays about 30 eggs, and some female Komodo dragons lay eggs in nest mounds that birds called megapodes built. The eggs take about eight months to hatch.

A baby Komodo dragon climbs trees and lives in them. A young one is green with yellow and black bands, and it eats small animals such as lizards, insects and geckos. An adult is dull brown or gray.

Indonesia set up Komodo National Park in 1980. As of November 2026, the Komodo dragon is listed as endangered. These dragons live in one small part of the world, and each one began as an egg on an island.

Words to know

• venom: poison
• megapodes: mound-building birds
• endangered: at risk
• bacteria: tiny living things