FEATURE/Here . . . Lizard, Lizard, Lizard!

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Gutsy Scientists Fight to Save the Killer Komodo Dragon;

Could the Beast's Lethal Bite Someday Save Lives?

It's big, it's mean and it eats anything that gets in its way -- so why is a brave band of conservationists battling to save the deadly Komodo dragon?

Beautiful they are not, admits Italian biologist Claudio Ciofi. "But they are magnificent, charismatic beasts." Charismatic, that is, if you enjoy being chased by the world's largest lizard -- a 10-foot-long, 200-pound monster whose razor-sharp bite transmits toxic bacteria. But researchers hope that killer bite might someday save human lives.

With fewer than 4,500 wild specimens of the lizards still in existence, Reader's Digest contributing editor Brian Eads journeyed to Indonesia to confront the creature on its turf. "It was as if I had stumbled into Jurassic Park," he recalls.

Once the master of its domain, the species' numbers and habitat are dwindling with the onslaught of man. Now, Eads reports in "Last Stand of the Komodo Dragon," Ciofi may be one of the best friends the Komodo has left.

"Don't move . . . he'll think you're prey," Ciofi whispers as the two men watch a giant gray-brown body emerge from the jungle, monstrous flat head flicking a foot-long yellow tongue. "They eat anything and everything, dead or alive," he explains.

That diet apparently includes visiting Swiss barons -- one adventurous aristocrat, intent on photographing the beasts, fell behind on an expedition years ago and was never seen again. All that was left was his spectacles and camera.

And yet, despite the danger, Ciofi arrives each year to track and tag the dragons on the five remote Indonesian islands where they still exist in the wild. Gathering blood and skin samples for DNA analysis, this scientist hopes the genetic data will help wildlife managers breed the dragons for survival in new environments.

Indonesian officials hope to move some of the lizards to a new home on the uninhabited island of Padar. Such a move becomes more urgent as the fast-growing human population turns jungle habitat into farmland.

The conservationists' work is not only urgent -- it's risky. If a Komodo dragon bites you, chances are you will die if not treated immediately. It's not the inch-long teeth that are usually lethal, but the 52 different strains of bacteria in the extremely toxic saliva.

So why doesn't the dragon itself become infected? The answer, found Terry Fredeking, is a protein molecule in the dragon's blood which kills the deadly bacteria. This substance, now being tested on mice, might someday be used to create a super-antibiotic, says Fredeking, who runs Antibody Systems, Inc., in Hurst, Texas.

"With any luck at all," he tells Reader's Digest, "the stuff could treat sepsis" -- the deadly blood infection which can develop in the aftermath of surgery or gunshot wounds. And that might save hundreds of thousands of lives worldwide.

Possible miracle cures or not, most local villagers see little benefit in protecting the rapacious reptiles. "Today they eat our goats," one complains. "Tomorrow they eat our children."

It's true, the Komodo dragon may be hard to love (they don't even seem to like each other, in fact). But as Ciofi points out, "they are a living link to a lost world." The August 1999 issue of Reader's Digest magazine spotlights this threatened dragon and its dogged defenders.