Okay, after tumultuous and exciting Fourth of July I thought the reader might enjoy a story about a creature that is probably a first cousin to the dinosaur. I am talking about the fierce Komodo Dragon. This prehistoric beast is very prevalent throughout Indonesia. During our visit to South East Asia and the China Sea, we were privileged to visit an island in Indonesia where there is a large population of these semi-monsters. The dragons we saw were about 10 to 16 feet in length. They were extremely bad tempered and easily aroused by human presence.

About 30 people were in our party and we were protected by eight guards who carried pitchforks to repel the dragons if we excited them. As fate would have it we as fate would have it we did excite them. One of the big ones, and I don't want to take it personally, appeared to be infuriated when he gazed on me. Anyway, they kill wild hogs quite frequently, but they will kill anything including human beings when the opportunity presents itself. The local people feed them and they admitted that in the last 10 years they have suffered at least two casualties.

The islands, where these beast live are a lush beautiful vegetative paradise. The climate is warm and almost tropical year round. This is why, this extremely prehistoric creature survives so well in this environment. The question arose totally in the abstract whether the Komodo could survive and defeat a crocodile in mortal combat. No one, had a definitive answer, but my own speculation is that the crocodile would reign supreme, due to its huge and powerful jaws.

It was educational and interesting to learn about this first cousin of the dinosaur, and to speculate how they had survived into the modern world. One item I would like to leave you with is that perhaps they are not the only species of this origin that has, unbeknown to man, survived into the modern world.