Komodo Dragon Hunt — Rinca Island

Description

The Komodo dragon (Varanus komodoensis) is the world’s largest lizard — adults reaching 3m in length and 70kg body mass — and the only surviving giant monitor lizard. This photograph, made on Rinca Island in Komodo National Park with a park guide present at statutory distance, captures an adult male in the characteristic hunting posture — the massive head held low, the forked tongue extended to capture chemical traces in the air, the body weight forward over the front legs in the ready-to-sprint posture. The image was made at 5m range with a 300mm lens in the late afternoon when Komodo dragons are most active. The prehistoric visual quality of the subject — unchanged in basic body plan for 4 million years — gives the photograph a distinctive natural history gravitas.