Welcome to Indonesia’s Komodo National Park, founded in 1980 to protect the Komodo dragon—a monitor lizard that evolved in this insular environment to be much larger "scale" than its fellows. Found only on the islands we see here—Komodo and Padar—and a handful of others nearby, it"s the biggest lizard walking the Earth today. Not only walking but sprinting: Since adult Komodo dragons often prey on swift Timor deer, you"ll sometimes see a dragon in a dead sprint after its would-be dinner, reaching up to 13 miles an hour.
Here there be dragons
Today in History
More Desktop Wallpapers:
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Wildebeest on the move
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A holiday beacon of light
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Winter solstice
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It s Census Day—make it count
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Rays on parade
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Hello, harbinger of spring
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Full moon
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Life in the slow lane
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World Philosophy Day
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Fiddlehead fern fronds
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A leafy seadragon in the waters off Wool Bay, Australia
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Ludwig’s palace
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Assembling the Smithsonian
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Sparkling ice diamonds on a black sandy beach
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Unbearable cuteness
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American Eagle Day
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An island hopper s paradise
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And to think that I saw it in Cappadocia
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All Rhodes lead to the beach
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Fighting evil with costumes
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Lake Peipus, Estonia
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Honoring the first American woman in space
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Celebrating women in science
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From the mind of Frank Gehry
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Borrego Badlands
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Devetashka Cave, Devetaki, Bulgaria
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Meandering through Patagonia
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We did not invent this, honest
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Halfway Day
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Tortula moss, Netherlands