The heaviest living lizards on earth, which can grow to 10 feet in length, are the Indonesian Komodo dragons. These living fossils have shark-like teeth and poisonous venom that can kill a human within hours of a bite. In short bursts they can race up to 11 mph.
Before the dragons started to attack, people in the villages lived peacefully alongside the world's largest lizard, for generations.
The tales spread quickly across the smattering of tropical islands in southeastern Indonesia, the only place the endangered reptiles can still be seen in the wild. Experts say Komodo dragon attacks are still rare. Since 2007 a young boy and a fisherman have been killed and one person died in 2000. A minimum of 8 people have been badly hurt in the last ten years. All incidents involved an unprovoked attack.
Main, a 46-year-old park ranger, was attacked while he was doing paperwork. A dragon slide up the stairs of his wooden hut in Komodo National Park and went for his ankles dangling beneath the desk. When the ranger tried to force open the beast's powerful jaws, it locked its teeth into his hand.
Komodo dragons go on a frenzied biting spree that releases venom, when they attack. Their saliva is packed with over 50 strains of bacteria.
Pointing to his jagged gashes, sewn up with 55 stitches and still swollen three months later, Main said," I thought I wouldn't survive... I've spent half my life working with Komodos and have never seen anything like it. Luckily, my friends heard my screams and got me to hospital in time."
Villagers say the dragons are hungry and more aggressive toward humans, because their food is being poached, though park officials are quick to disagree. "Though poaching is illegal, the sheer size of the park and a shortage of rangers make it almost impossible to patrol," said Heru Rudiharto, a biologist and reptile expert.
The local fishermen say "We used to give them the bones and skin of deer". Many inhabitants blame the 1994 law that disallows villagers from feeding the dragons.
However tame these living reptiles may appear to be, lazing under trees and steering at the ocean from white-sandy beaches, they are strong, fast and deadly. Rudiharto says "The giant lizards have always been dangerous".
A dragon can gobble up 70% of its own body weight in only one feeding.
In Indonesia there is an unwavering community of around 3-5,000 Komodo dragons on the islands of Komodo, Gila Motang, Flores an, Rinca. Still, a dearth of egg-laying females, poaching, human encroachment, combined with natural disasters, has taken the species to the endangered status.