Prague Zoo to become a major monitor lizard mecca
A female Komodo dragon lays 20 eggs for the third time!
The Komodo dragon was given to Prague Zoo by Indonesia thanks to Czech President V. Klaus, who accepted the gift from the Indonesian President. The animal stands a big chance of becoming a real star in the reptile world.
We are monitor-power
This largest of lizards in the world has the exalted status of being a highly prestigious animal in the zoological gardens of Europe. It isn’t usually prolifically successful at breeding as the females often die after they have laid eggs for the first time. They are sometimes attacked by the male and therefore offspring don’t survive. Prague Zoo is however quite the exception in this respect as zoo-keepers have recently uncovered twenty new eggs from the latest nest of this female Komodo dragon which has now bred for the third time! We can therefore justly proclaim that the Prague Zoo has become ‘European Monitor-Power’.
She even dug through concrete
Egg laying started on 9th February in the evening. “As on two previous occasions, the monitor mum-to-be dug through the concrete foundation below the layer of sand to prepare a hole, where she then laid her eggs. The total endeavour lasted from 3 p.m. until 8 p.m. and all this time she was closely watched by keepers. Afterwards she used her nose to gently push the eggs under the concrete layer and covered them with fine substratum. As a finishing motherly touch she piled some sand on the top, this time using her front paws,” described Petr Velenský, who is in charge of lizards at Zoo Prague.
Eggs had to be removed
Keepers removed the eggs from the nest for understandable reasons: they are sensitive to changes in temperature and moisture and we also can’t rule out the possibility of the mother attacking her own offspring. “Still, I was pleasantly surprised at how sensitive, gentle and motherly this fearsome predator can be, “said P. Velenský. “The Komodo eggs will be placed for about 210 days in a special substratum enjoying high humidity and a constant temperature of 31 °C. We predict that they will hatch at the beginning of September,” said P. Velenský.
One quarter of Komodo Dragons in Prague
Komodo dragons are bred in about 13 zoological gardens in Europe. Altogether their number totals 43 animals, out of which 10 live in Prague Zoo! In the Indonesian Jungle section you can see the parents that were brought here in 2004 and the three-year-old offspring as well as four-month-old youngsters can be found in the pavilion of big turtles.
Our Zoo offers the right conditions
In 2006, a conference focusing on issues that give rise to the unsuccessful breeding of Komodo dragons took place in Rotterdam. Individual animals were dying in all European countries and it was Prague Zoo that presented the main principles of better breeding conditions, such as the right kind of food and temperature. Experts had discovered that the animals were dying as a result of their blood vessels being clogged up by metabolites of calcium – this was probably due to unsuitable feeding and low temperatures. Another reason was their aggressive behaviour against each other with the males often hurting females in the course of courting without even making it to the act of mating. Another cause of their high mortality is obesity that is caused by bad food and little exercise.
12. February 2010
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